


A Lesson in Adolescence

by aijee



Series: Chronicles of Not-Adulthood [1]
Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Growing Up, Humor, M/M, Romance, Slow Burn, gratuitous use of sarcasm, the sweet pain of youth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-18
Updated: 2017-12-02
Packaged: 2019-02-03 23:48:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 31,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12758769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aijee/pseuds/aijee
Summary: Wonwoo doesn’t remember when exactly he fell in love with Mingyu, but he recalls, with exceptional clarity, the day he broke Mingyu’s nose.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> eat your hearts out, carats. have another high school au.
> 
> (btw everyone goes to a k-12 international school because i did, too, and i’m living vicariously through my writing oof.)

 

“…it was a million tiny little things that, when you added them all up,  
they meant we were supposed to be together...and I knew it.”

Sam Baldwin, _Sleepless in Seattle_

 

 

* * *

 

  

“The one time I give you an umbrella,” Wonwoo’s mother starts tersely, “you drip rainwater all over my rugs.”

“You know me,” admits Wonwoo as he closes the front door behind him, “I have terrible instincts when it comes to the weather.”

“Where’s the umbrella? Did you lose it?”

Brushing away his damp fringe, Wonwoo says, “Something like that.”

 

 

 

Wonwoo doesn’t remember when exactly he fell in love with Mingyu, but he recalls, with exceptional clarity, the day he broke Mingyu’s nose.

 

 

 

It’s the beginning of lunch and Wonwoo is asleep in his next-period classroom.

Jeonghan would be proud. Joshua, not so much. Wonwoo can already hear the ominous Joshua-voice in his head telling him that humanity is on the brink of destruction because America and North Korea can’t stop comparing dicks and all Wonwoo can do is _sleep_ when he should be getting an education while that still exists. One may even describe Wonwoo’s exhaustion, in an ironically foreboding way, as “knocked out” with how little he recalls his hair ending up like a porcupine of hair ties or the draping of a warm blazer on his shoulders.

Winter, like the pompous season it is, has been slapping autumn around lately. It’s been a week straight of Wonwoo forgetting the appropriate garments at home, so he actually doesn’t mind the jacket. He figures it belongs to Seungcheol or even Junhui, given the size, and makes a mental note to text them after school.

But when English class waltzes in, Wonwoo feels inexplicably overcome with worry. It’s the kind of emotional nausea equivalent to a seafood-allergic person realizing he’d eaten fried seabass, not chicken strips, after inhaling five helpings with the adrenaline-filled enthusiasm of an idiot dared by even more idiotic idiots. But no Epi-pen exists for mental queasiness the same way there isn’t a cure-all for cancer or lovesickness. Otherwise, world peace would probably be reality instead of a reality show and anxiety wouldn’t exist.

But anxiety does exist and Wonwoo isn't sure why he’s feeling it so potently so suddenly. That is, until History class comes along and Wonwoo realizes his headphones are gone.

The brand is cheap and commonly found, therefore easily replaceable by that logic. But these specific headphones held the sentimental burden of being his uncle’s passing away gift. Worse is that this uncle had to go and be an asshole and teach Wonwoo how to be _passionate_ , of all things, and feel like he, in the midst of weekly existential crises, had purpose somewhere in the limbo between birth and death.

Suffice to say, Wonwoo is ready to (figuratively) kill a man by the time classes wrap up, and his mission, based on the name written on the jacket's tag, has to do with neither Seungcheol nor Junhui but someone named—

“Kim Mingyu?” says a girl in many of Wonwoo’s classes. He’s seen her face for three years, but a name never comes to mind. “He’s the president of the sophomore student council. I was walking to English when I saw him coming out of our classroom.”

President of the world or janitor’s son with every gold star in existence, this Mingyu kid is still going to get a piece of Wonwoo’s mind—not literally, of course, because that would be horrifying.

“If you’re trying to find the porcupine hair culprit, I think it was Jun.”

“Figures.” Wonwoo adds another name to his hit list. “What does he look like? Mingyu, I mean.”

“Obnoxiously tall, resting smile face. My friends say there’s a weird glow around him, but they take Advanced Econ so they’re kinda crazy. Mingyu is the definition of ‘hard to miss,’ though, so I’m surprised you don’t know who he is.”

Knowing Wonwoo, which Wonwoo did quite intimately, there is no surprise. “Do you know where he is right now?” he asks with urgency.

“There might be a giant stugov meeting in the admin office right now. Otherwise, I think he's usually chilling by the gate.”

“Thanks,” Wonwoo says. He books it before the girl gives in to her suspicions and tests Wonwoo on her name, which he still doesn’t quite remember. Luckily, Wonwoo at least remembers Joshua complaining about a cancelled student government meeting, thus narrowing down the two possible sites of (figurative) murder to one.

While fast-walking to his destination, the only strides faster than Wonwoo’s own are those in his mind: he has a million and one skeletons of thought at a time, most of which never get fleshed out enough to meet tangibility. But the lucky ones get to stick around long enough for Wonwoo to realize them, like his study plans for Physics, or Jihoon’s upcoming gig at the nearest café, or the not-so-mystery blazer in Wonwoo’s arms.

The last one is the most bizarre, Wonwoo thinks. Even now, the blazer is still warm, as warm as it would be after hours of absorbing its wearer’s body heat. If Wonwoo’s learned anything from his minimal history of hugging, it’s that 1) he is a walking sack of bones and skin in that order, and 2) his body’s sense of temperature is as broken as Seokmin’s sense of humor, so the retained heat of the blazer is certainly not his.

By the time Wonwoo reaches the courtyard, he sees a group of underclassmen milling about outside the school gates, looking like they’re about to sell cookies or help grandmothers cross streets. Except one of them isn’t an underclassman in all his dumb, hyperactive, bad memory-inducing glory.

“Wonwoo!” greets Soonyoung, a fellow junior and the unfortunate goblin-squirrel Wonwoo calls his best friend. The title is still up for reevaluation. “What are you doing here?”

Wonwoo feels unusually more aware of the jacket in his arms. “That’s something I should be asking you. You’re almost always in the dance studio after school.”

“Well, I was graciously invited by my dance underlings to hang out.” Soonyoung looks ridiculously proud of himself for spending time with people other than Wonwoo or Mr. Righty. “Minghao, Chan, meet my second asshole Jeon Wonwoo. Don’t worry, he only despises children aged eleven and under.”

“Twelve,” Wonwoo corrects. Again.

Somewhere behind Soonyoung, two students bow. Wonwoo reciprocates, albeit slowly in his suspiciousness over Soonyoung’s likely diabolical intentions.

“My intentions are perfectly not-diabolical. Is it a crime for me to hang out with underclassmen?” retorts Soonyoung, reminding Wonwoo that thinking aloud when stressed is a habit he apparently hasn’t outgrown yet. “Also, unfair, I answered my question before you did even though I asked first. Did you need me for something? Look, I know I’m in high demand after last year’s arts festival, and as my best friend you get certain rights, but—”

“Do you know where my headphones went?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” With that tone and those shifty eyes, Soonyoung may as well he screaming “hell yeah I do, dickwad” in Wonwoo’s face.

“If I’m your second asshole,” Wonwoo says with venomous sweetness, “then your mouth is your third because I know you’re talking shit, and it reeks of another one of your deals. You swindled someone again, didn’t you?”

“Hey,” shyly interrupts either Minghao or Chan, Wonwoo isn’t sure, “Mingyu’s finally here.”

“Sorry guys, I thought my meeting was cancelled but then it got un-cancelled. I’m here now though!”

Wonwoo turns around, for some reason thinking _that’s a cute lisp_ before _time to die_.

“Oh, Jeon Wonwoo, right?” asks this tall, gangly student in a uniform somehow still pristine after several long hours spent at a socially-accepted torture facility. He’s wearing this goofy smile, canines jutting in the least intimidating way possible and near unbearable in brightness that Wonwoo wishes for some sunglasses. “Did you eat lunch today? You were sleeping at your desk during lunch time, and it’s not good to skip meals with the weather getting colder.”

“I was fine,” Wonwoo replies, dry. The desire to strangle Mingyu is as strong as the urge pinch his cheeks. “Did you take the headphones from my bag?”

“Um, yeah, Soonyoung said he’d give me some coupons if I did—”

 _He exchanged my headphones for fucking coupons?_ Thoughts of cute lisps and white smiles dissipated, Wonwoo thrusts the blazer into Mingyu’s arms. He ignores the startled but polite look Mingyu offers.

“Hey,” starts Mingyu, “I know you haven’t been bringing your jacket lately—”

Wonwoo rolls up his sleeves and drops his bag, also ignoring the thick wave of warmth attempting to sway him from reaching the end of his quest.

“—so if you want to borrow mine until you can bring yours—”

A ghost of a hand (probably Soonyoung's) lands on Wonwoo’s shoulder, as conciliation or a warning or even an apology.

“—I’d be totally fine with you keeping it till then—”

Wonwoo pulls his arm back in a universal sign of the punch he’s shipping to the unfortunate bastard who ordered it express delivery. Based on the terrifying clarity of Wonwoo’s eyes, the recipient is definitely Mingyu, who, in retrospect, is really just an innocent student with the misfortune of bartering with a demon from hell. Poor guy. After toiling through Soonyoung’s thoughtlessness, his prize is to get (figuratively) eliminated from the plane of existence.

In the milliseconds leading up to impact, Wonwoo notices a few things.

For one, the wind stays ominously silent like a halted breath. Leaves from nearby trees drift and float around them, mood-making a poor imitation of the fluttering petals characteristic of high school anime and Korean dramas. This isn’t one of those vapid romances Jihoon vehemently denies watching, and yet the universe does the funniest things to tell Wonwoo he’s about to regret putting his mind to something for once.

Such as making Wonwoo imagine how puberty would style Mingyu in a year or so (the answer is “handsome”—every iteration of it and beyond human comprehension). Such as giving Mingyu’s skin this weird ethereal glow crazy Advanced Econ girls talk about, the kind of glow Wonwoo has only seen in movies and dreams. He dumbly wonders if Mingyu’s mom washes it and hangs it to dry when Mingyu isn’t being fucking the sun.

Kim Mingyu is a strangely attractive person, Wonwoo thinks, like a well-accepted theory with a chance of being untrue but no one wants it to be lest the fragile balance of knowledge be disrupted. Chaos ensues, social systems and rules crumble, etcetera.

But none of that is enough to disturb the laws of physics from letting momentum drive Wonwoo’s knuckles firmly into Mingyu’s abominably, regrettably, unrealistically attractive face.

Things go downhill (and later uphill) from there.

 

 

 

Upgrades and punishments are similar in that both are potentially stackable, except stackable upgrades are blessings in troublesome dungeon levels while stackable punishments are the aftermath of being stupid, which Wonwoo is more often than he’d like to admit.

Since the incident technically happened off school grounds, one hand is enough to count the consequences: reduced inheritance to pay for medical bills and gifts; being so grounded a coffin would be jealous; losing allowance for two eternities; wading through hallways congested with whispers; and bearing the ire of the entire sophomore class and female population of the school. It’s a mystery as to why Mingyu’s parents didn’t sue, but Wonwoo has some guesses involving Mingyu’s reasoning skills and winning smile.

“I told him they were actually my headphones and that I lent them to you,” Soonyoung had explained to Wonwoo, sincere remorse in his voice as he handed back the cursed audio set. “I said I’d give him coupons for the canteen if he got the headphones for me, but I didn’t think he’d actually go for it. Really sorry for messing with you, dude. I know those headphones mean a lot to you, but I guess my thick skull didn’t get the memo soon enough.”

“You’re a terrible childhood-best friend,” Wonwoo had told him, face purged of any ability to show positive emotions. “But I guess I’m an even more terrible human being.”

There is certainly evidence to substantiate that statement, if the impressive bounty on his head by Mingyu’s unofficial fan club is any indication, but thankfully(?) Wonwoo is scrawny and an average enough person to carry a not-so-great punch. Sucks that there isn’t a James Bond in Wonwoo’s blood, but at least Mingyu is still a functioning entity of sorts at the end of it all.

Time somehow passes by, albeit slowly and agonizingly suffocating with guilt. The peak of chaos peters out, but Wonwoo still feels like a pile of shit.

“I’m sorry,” he says to Mingyu when visiting the patient room; it’s been a daily occurrence lately. While Mingyu doesn’t technically need to stay any longer, Wonwoo understands if the family is milking the compensation for what it’s worth. “I’m really sorry. Again.”

Mingyu looks up from the homework Wonwoo is unsurprised to find him doing. He motions Wonwoo over from where the latter stands by the doorframe, awkward and afraid to lay more sacrilege upon a space of sanctity and healing. Shame moves his legs forward anyway.

“Hi hyung.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Greetings are for greetings, and apologies are for apologies,” Mingyu says, easy and sweet like his gaze. “You’ve already apologized.”

Wonwoo inspects the worn tips of his shoes. “You can’t go to school yet.”

“Doesn’t stop me from studying.”

“I’m sorry.”

“If only saying sorry a bunch of times would heal me faster.” The way Mingyu speaks is so naturally and strangely light, as if what Wonwoo did was an innocent flick of the forehead and not a misfired blow to the moneymaker. “Unfortunately, that’s not the case. But you know what you can help me fix soon?”

“What?”

“The wrong foot we got off on.”

Mingyu smoothly extends his hand like the smooth motherfucker he is, or maybe he’s just smooth in times it may matter most. Makes sense for someone re-voted into class presidency. Wonwoo can’t help but crack a grin that mirrors Mingyu’s when they both realize the sheer corniness of their exchange. It’s the first time in a while Wonwoo lets himself smile.

Without hesitation, Wonwoo grips Mingyu’s hand in his, firmly and gratefully. Mingyu’s grin widens and Wonwoo is glad that it does.

“Kim Mingyu—sophomore student council president, varsity basketball hopeful, convenience store connoisseur and Geography’s arch nemesis.”

“Jeon Wonwoo—junior, literary club president, and local ice cream expert. I shook hands with BoA once.”

“You sure have a mean punch for someone who doesn’t do any sports. Did you punch me with the hand BoA shook?”

“If my punch was any good, then you’d have a pastiche of a nose instead of a slightly mishandled ‘Fragile: Handle with Care’ package from the art auction.”

“…so are you saying I’m a work of art? Did my nose sell for a lot of money?”

“It certainly helped clean up my inheritance.”

“Well, that sock you gave was pretty dirty.”

By the rules of the universe, this should make them even because that wordplay was arguably just as painful.

Wonwoo groans, too loudly and pronounced to be serious, but enough to say that maybe he’ll consider being cool with whatever dynamic he’s forced them into. Tomorrows are entirely different beasts—he knows the guilt will come back with a vengeance—but Wonwoo supposes that a little repose from the battle wouldn’t hurt.

“I’ve got some leftovers from lunch,” Mingyu says. “Want some?”

Wonwoo sighs, already gravitating towards the abandoned kimbap on the bedside table. Mingyu laughs.

“Well,” says Wonwoo, still grinning, “someone did mention my habit of skipping meals.”

He is certain that Kim Mingyu is as much of a personification of sunshine as he is of persistence, because the kid still manages to smile that impossibly bright smile despite hospital imprisonment and being in the presence of the perpetrator who put him there. Wonwoo eventually thinks that maybe Mingyu is less of a theory and more of a straight-up outlier of humanity, especially with that “made from God’s own hands” kind of aura the guy exudes.

But whatever Mingyu ends up being, Wonwoo doesn’t think it’ll be a bad thing.

 

 

 

In fact, it’s a terrible thing. The worst thing. The kind of thing that entails not only expanding Wonwoo’s exclusive (read: limited) social circle, but also maintaining this newfound friendship between him and Mingyu, all of which Wonwoo honestly didn’t think would last after Mingyu returned to school. But a couple weeks in and their meet-ups during breaks and lunches are still going strong.

“Do you ever think about the ‘b’ in ‘subtle’?” asks Mingyu one day over cheap pasta and iced tea in the cafeteria.

“Cells multiply by dividing,” he whispers instead of reviewing his flash cards for Chinese.

“If the version of me in my mind is different from the versions of me in other people’s minds, then which version is the real me?” he says to Wonwoo over the phone at some point on some weekday night.

And Wonwoo would totally find Mingyu and his musings endearing if they didn’t happen at ass o’clock in the morning.

“The version of you right now is just fine,” mumbles Wonwoo through the sleepiness and grit teeth, “even if he’s a dumbass who needs to go the fuck to sleep.”

Maintenance is the definition of hassle, and Wonwoo despises being hassled. But something tells him that “despise” can’t be used to refer to “Kim Mingyu” if he wants the world intact enough by graduation. Keeping up the balance of Mother Nature isn’t a responsibility he’s ready for, but there he is, unable to turn away from Mingyu’s suggestion of hanging out after school. It’s the one proposition Wonwoo has perfectly rejected each time, but something about that pleading puppy stare today shrivels up his pre-recorded answer.

“Chan invited Soonyoung and Minghao invited Junhui this time,” says Mingyu with unbridled excitement, like the idea of socializing with upperclassmen is better than flying to space. Then again, with eyes so full of stars like that, Wonwoo guesses Mingyu wouldn’t have any need for space adventures. “You should come too.”

Wonwoo crosses his arms. He doesn’t like the way Mingyu stands there like a blockade and knows it. “Two questions: how do you know which locker is mine? Actually, scratch that, I don’t want to know. Other question: didn’t I, like, punch you a few weeks ago?”

“Um, yes? The bruising’s almost gone though—”

“Exactly. Isn’t there something wrong with inviting the person who punched you to hang out after class?”

“But I took something important of yours without permission.” The answer sounds dangerously simple coming from Mingyu’s mouth, which itself borders on a rueful frown. “I was told that it meant a lot to you, too. That was my mistake.”

The _nerve_ of this guy—Wonwoo must be going deaf because there’s no way Mingyu is blaming himself for getting punched. Who does that? Care Bears? Pillows? Wonwoo is feeling all sorts of indescribable emotions as he tries connecting the dots of Mingyu’s unreadable expression, but all that comes of the attempt is a tangle of lines and far too much eye contact.

“Look,” Wonwoo starts, looking away. “You did nothing wrong, or at least nothing bad enough to deserve getting slammed like that. Agree to disagree, whatever, but can we at least acknowledge that no side was without misunderstanding?”

“We can do that. I can do that.”

Wonwoo bops the crown of Mingyu’s head. The way Mingyu widens his in surprise is both rude and cute and Wonwoo wants to hate it but can’t.

“I’m ninety-nine percent sure,” he says carefully, “that the global happiness index of this school is largely dependent on whether or not you’re in a good mood, so stop looking so glum, will you? I don’t want any more sophomores putting my face on wanted posters.”

Mingyu nods, silent but with the expression of someone with something to say but can’t.

People are really staring this time, and Wonwoo doesn’t blame them. What a spectacle it must be to see a put-together student council president like Mingyu, with his proper posture and pressed uniform, standing in front of Wonwoo, a slouchy, barely-alive junior who just wants to get into college.

But they’re suddenly doing the weird mirror-smiling thing again thanks to Mingyu’s powerful talent for provocation. It makes Wonwoo wonder if his own face always had the capacity to smile this much.

“Was all that a long-winded way of saying yes to my invitation?” Mingyu asks, slyly stepping closer to Wonwoo.

But Wonwoo, from the way he pushes past Mingyu and forges open a path to his locker, isn’t having any of that smooth and sly business. Even without turning, Wonwoo can still detect how present Mingyu is making himself, almost like a peacock yearning for someone to notice its feathers.

“Depends on what you guys are doing,” Wonwoo says while opening his locker.

“Nothing special,” Mingyu says with a shrug. “Highway robbery, drugs, maybe light arson if we’ve got the time. This uncle at the market’s been giving me weird looks lately.”

“I was expecting something classier, like hacking government files or private mercenary work. I’m disappointed.”

“Sorry, Dad.”

“Says the kid with the stupid dad jokes.” Wonwoo closes his locker with a clear air of finality, but makes no sign that he’s leaving without a fight. A non-violent, punch-free one, of course. “Now hurry up and give me the real deets because my class is three floors and two hallways away, and I have no intention of running.”

“We're going to the Ice Cream Shop! I heard that you really like that place.”

“Who is the dastardly villain who keeps feeding you information about me? Is it Soonyoung? Listening to him is a mistake. I would know.”

“You really do sound like an old man,” huffs Mingyu, smile radiating out so far that every part of him looks ten times happier. Smiles shouldn’t be able to do that.

Before Wonwoo has the chance to hurl a freshly-cooked retort at the smugness Mingyu is serving, Wonwoo finds himself with a uniform blazer shoved clumsily into his arms, dreadfully familiar in its still-there warmth. Wonwoo takes a moment to notice the sight of Mingyu’s backside rapidly shrinking down the hallway.

 _You have no choice now_ , Wonwoo hears the blazer telling him, _You have to go later to return me_.

The bell rings several beats too late, and Wonwoo decides that he really needs some aspirin for his headache. He just imagined dialogue for a jacket, one that seriously needs to stop feeding bad thoughts to his starving brain.

“Screw you, Kim Mingyu,” Wonwoo mutters under his breath, hugging the blazer closer to his stomach. It feels nice, almost like a hug.

 

 

 

“You look like you need a hug.”

“You look like you need a haircut yesterday.”

Soonyoung wrinkles his nose, absently touching the small ponytail at the base of his head. “Ponytails for guys are the new man-buns, you know,” he mumbles. “Anyway, you look like you just ate a lemon and are only regretting it now. Well, you always look like that, but today looks like an extra sour lemon. What’s up?”

The school day reached its end ten minutes ago. When Soonyoung arrived to pick up Wonwoo from his locker, the latter made a show (“—and a musical and a theater play, _douche canoe_ , let’s go _—_ ”) out of packing and repacking and packing his things. The fact that it’s a Friday should justify his relaxed pace, Wonwoo had argued, but Soonyoung just stared at the blazer Wonwoo was wearing because it looked suspiciously clean to be his. No response was provided.

“Why are we doing this,” Wonwoo says more than asks. He gestures to one of the windows in the hallway. Outside is the school gate, and outside that is a human beanstalk in a pressed, blazer-less uniform with his band of sprouts.

“Because ice cream, duh. Dessertified diabetes after a week of hard work is the best.” Soonyoung tugs a reluctant Wonwoo to the staircase. “Hanging out with people—correction, _other_ people—can also be fun if you let it. It’s not like you’re jumping into a tank of sharks.”

“It might as well be.”

“Then backflip away.”

“Yours truly lost allowance privileges when he decided to play god and smite the innocent,” Wonwoo says, but his lack of resistance to Soonyoung’s pulling belies his refusal. “If you love me, you’ll save me the torture of watching everyone else but myself consume frozen desserts at my favorite frozen dessert place. I’ve suffered so much already.”

“I do love you—with what little is left of my soul, that is. But I want you to be a functioning member of society, and that starts with, wait for it… _social interaction!_ Crazy, I know.”

“Dude, I’m pretty sure Mingyu’s friends hate me. And that Mingyu hates me, too, because it’s humanly impossible to be that happy-go-lucky after getting an extra deluxe knuckle sandwich to the face. I’m also still technically grounded so my parents are going to kill me if I’m out too late and there’s not really any reason for me to go and, um, I’m trying to, uh, watch my figure.”

“You run your mouth too much when you’re nervous,” says Soonyoung as they reach the front entrance of the school.

He wraps an arm around Wonwoo’s shoulders, and it’s somewhat comforting against the cold sweat Wonwoo is breaking into. The approaching scene—with Mingyu’s friends beyond the gates, leaves falling gently around them, and Mingyu standing there with the kindest of intentions—is giving Wonwoo the sickliest taste of déjà vu.

“We have ten seconds before we get to the gate,” says Soonyoung, “so here are my nuggets of wisdom: I’ll cover your order if Mingyu doesn’t, and I will eat my thumb if that happens because there’s no way he won’t. Also, if Mingyu’s cool with you, his friends will be too, so stop harping on with that ‘everyone hates me including me’ nonsense of yours. You’re like a teddy bear without the fluff, and everyone loves teddy bears. Besides, we’re just going for ice cream, bro, we ain’t clubbing till the sun comes up. It’ll be chill, so _chill_ — hey guys!”

Wonwoo gulps, feeling immediately cold with Soonyoung detached from his side. Junhui is already there, elbowing probably-Minghao for saying something apparently funny. In the rest of the mix are mystery faces with names Wonwoo is doomed to remember and recite. Then there’s Mingyu, whose face Wonwoo has almost memorized like the back of his hand.

“Hyung!” Mingyu says cheerfully, meeting Wonwoo halfway. Ah, there’s that signature smile Wonwoo isn’t sure he wants to see. “I’m glad you could join us for some weather-inappropriate treats.”

“Say that again when winter weather really starts beating the exam motivation out of us,” Wonwoo deadpans, wincing internally at the poor word choice. “Anyway, my schedule is laughably free. Don’t worry about it.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. Shall we go?”

“Do I still have a chance to run away?”

“I could totally catch you if you do.”

“Seems like that height of yours is getting to your head.” Wonwoo scoffs, giving Mingyu a judgmental once-over. “You couldn’t catch me. My legs are definitely longer than yours.”

“No way!” Mingyu makes some vague pointing gestures at his and Wonwoo’s lower halves. “My legs are so longer than yours!”

Wonwoo sets his bag on the ground. “Wanna bet?”

So does Mingyu. “Wanna _race?”_

The smirk Wonwoo gives Mingyu is the only answer they need before they’re both sprinting at top speed to The Ice Cream Shop, the most creatively-named student hotspot within walkable distance.

“Is he normally this competitive?” asks Minghao, picking up Mingyu’s backpack.

“Yeah,” says Junhui, shouldering Wonwoo’s messenger bag.

“And Mingyu?” asks Soonyoung.

“Oh yeah,” sighs Chan.

 

 

 

Where Mingyu is infinitely more athletic, Wonwoo is marginally more quick-witted, but that’s all Wonwoo needs to be to remember the shortcut he usually takes. He manages to arrive two solid seconds ahead of Mingyu before they both collapse into a heap of heavy breathing and heavier limbs. Mingyu sure has a knack for pushing Wonwoo into making bad decisions, and this one is no different.

 _But maybe,_ Wonwoo thinks absently, even with lungs turned into paper and burning with his skull about to burst into confetti, _it’s not so bad this time._

“I win,” Wonwoo manages between pulses of breath. He’s gone boneless over a steel chair at one of the outside tables.

Mingyu grunts, in a similar situation but with more acknowledgement of his bones. “As if. You cheated.”

“No, I outsmarted you. And I’m faster.”

“Taking a shorter route doesn’t prove that you’re faster.”

“Our differing arrival times say otherwise.”

“Whatever,” Mingyu says, moving into a proper sitting position. “I’m going to win next time.”

Wonwoo grabs the hand Mingyu offers and pulls himself up a little. He’s surprised at the strength in Mingyu’s grip, but, then again, this is Mingyu.

“There isn’t going to be a next time, buddy,” Wonwoo scoffs. “I’m calling it quits while my winning streak is at its peak.”

“Don’t speak too soon, hyung. I know your type.”

“Which is?”

“Easily provoked.”

Wonwoo turns to look Mingyu. Either the others are really slow, or it feels like time has finally pitied Wonwoo enough to slow down.

Slivers of hair are plastered across Mingyu’s forehead, damp face rosy and glistening with boyish youth and unyielding grins. A few undone buttons and the resulting flashes of collarbone confirm Wonwoo’s assumptions that being sun-kissed is not the same as having a farmer’s tan. Even the loosened tie hanging from Mingyu’s neck is just calling to be pulled.

Wonwoo doesn’t do it. Doing nothing is one of his specialties.

“You know nothing about me,” Wonwoo says, soft enough to keep his voice level. The blazer he wrapped around his waist prior to the run has turned hot and burdensome.

“I know enough,” declares Mingyu, standing up, “to know that you desperately need ice cream right now. What’s your favorite flavor?”

“Um, the rainbow sherbet here is really good.”

“Do you have a preference for cones or cups?”

“Cones?”

“Great, I’ll get one scoop of rainbow sherbet for me and one for you.”

Wonwoo scrambles up but his legs are unfit chopsticks that refuse to let him stand. “Wait a minute, Mingyu—”

“As the loser, it’s my moral obligation to gift the winner with a prize,” Mingyu says, inexplicably cheerful in his loss.

“I can buy for myself,” Wonwoo insists even though he can’t.

Any protests may as well be nonexistent with Mingyu already leaving, parading a V-sign on his way to the storefront. “Let’s have a ‘next time’ so you can make it up to me,” he says.

The challenge has been thrown and Wonwoo does nothing to stop it from making a home in the air between them.

By the time the rest of Mingyu’s and Wonwoo’s friends arrive, Wonwoo is a dizzy pile of dehydration, train wrecked trains of thought, and confusion in its rawest, untapped form. The cool air does nothing to soothe the feverish bubbles in Wonwoo’s stomach, or the heated waves of post-battle adrenaline in his veins.

At some point, Wonwoo and Soonyoung make eye contact. Soonyoung lightly bites his thumb and raises his brows: _So?_

Wonwoo just shakes his head and drops his face into his arms. He hates it when Soonyoung is right.

 

 

 

Wonwoo is eventually forced by Mingyu’s pleading eyes to get to know his friends.

Seungkwan is a flamboyant freshman with a knack for singing when people least want to hear it, but he’s funny and witty and Wonwoo can’t help but like him. Hansol is a handsome also-freshman whose general reticence make Seungkwan’s volume even more striking. Minghao, a transfer student from China, and Chan, who’s apparently smart enough to skip a grade level, know Soonyoung through dance and Mingyu through…well, everyone knows him. Then there’s Seokmin, a hilarious and loud sophomore Wonwoo met through Jihoon and Mingyu through Seungkwan. Seokmin quickly forms an alliance with Soonyoung so dangerous, they’d be a new category of natural disaster.

It’s all dysfunctional, to say the least, but Wonwoo can’t find it in himself to mind. He may even hazard the thought that it’s nice.

“Are you having fun?” Mingyu whispers into his ear. While both their sights are set on Seokmin and Soonyoung’s uncoordinated but entertaining interpretive dance, Wonwoo would be lying if he said he was paying any attention to it now.

He nods. “Surprisingly, I am. Thanks again for the ice cream.”

“I should be telling you the same thing. I didn’t know sherbet could be so tasty.”

“I don’t call myself the local ice cream expert for nothing.”

Mingyu’s laugh is quiet, hushed and under his breath, as if he doesn’t intend for anyone but Wonwoo to hear. Only when he returns home does Wonwoo realize he’d forgotten to return the blazer.

 

 

 

On Monday morning, Wonwoo gets Soonyoung to get Seokmin to tip off Minghao who tells Soonyoung who passes it on to Wonwoo as to which class is Mingyu’s first for the day. Convoluted? Yes. Works anyway? Also yes.

‘Too fucking early’ AM finds Wonwoo standing in the gym outside the attached changing room, which is not only Wonwoo’s least favorite place ever, but also the most awkward spot to be waiting for someone to return a damn piece of clothing. This is especially the case when Wonwoo recognizes the teacher and dreads the incoming conversation. The sophomores don’t even hide their curious stares, wondering what a junior is doing willingly being inside the gym.

Of course, because it’s Mingyu and anything to do with Mingyu makes things for Wonwoo more difficult, it’s only when class is about to start that Mingyu shows up.

“You’re a lucky man, Mingyu,” barks the teacher as Mingyu huffs into view, already dressed in the P.E. uniform. Wonwoo doesn’t know if Mingyu’s legs are too long or if the shorts are too short. “You were less than a minute away from being marked tardy.”

“Sorry. Can I just put my stuff away real quick?”

“Clock’s still ticking. Hurry up.”

Mingyu spots Wonwoo, eyes widening for barely a second, like he isn’t sure if Wonwoo is really there, before rushing into the changing room to drop off his bags. Wonwoo guesses Mingyu doesn’t want to lose his team captain status during today’s ping pong unit for what was probably a traffic jam.

“Class is about to start, Mr. Jeon,” the teacher tells Wonwoo. “You should head out before your own luck runs dry.”

 

 

 

A week or so passes by with Wonwoo missing the opportunity to return the jacket, or simply forgetting to do so. He shares cramped moments of recognition or greeting with Mingyu before one of them is whisked away without so much as a word, and, by the second week, Wonwoo gives up. He’s surprised he lasted this long, actually, considering his tendency to give up easily. But he eventually decides it’s better just to keep the jacket on hand at all times for when Mingyu finally learns to be protective of his clothes.

But the weirdest thing, for some reason, is that the punching incident starts dying out in favor of everyone’s sudden realizations around Wonwoo’s apparent good looks. His mother always tells him he’s handsome, but moms are obliged to do that because unsolicited compliments are part of the job description. Students have no such responsibility. Wonwoo has a scathing guess that it has to do with Mingyu.

“You make everything sound like it’s this Mingyu kid’s fault,” says Jihoon as he and Wonwoo work together to finish a practice exam on integrals. “He’s just an excitable and social guy, not the antichrist. How’d you do number three?”

“Three? I started— wait, shit, forgot the negative.” Wonwoo scratches out the last few lines of calculations and fixes the substitutions before passing the paper to Jihoon. “Anyway, Mingyu being the antichrist doesn’t sound implausible. Humans are inherently selfish and greedy, but Special Snowflake apparently didn’t get the memo. His humanity is a lie. _He_ is a lie. That’s the only possible explanation.”

“Or maybe he’s just really fucking nice,” mutters Jihoon, tacking on “dumbass” for effect while working his way through Wonwoo’s computations. Maybe Wonwoo’s been around ferocious people like Jihoon for too long that any experience with Mingyu feels like hanging out with an actual angel. (Jeonghan can eat his heart out.)

Wonwoo starts on another question. “You know, I found a confession note on my desk in Japanese this morning.”

“And I’m supposed to care why?”

“I thought that stuff only happened in dramas or movies. Should I go for it?”

Jihoon frowns and scoots away slightly. At Wonwoo’s confused look, he responds with unenthusiastic jazz hands. “Watch out! Get too close and I might catch your masochism!”

“You’re a dick. And not the good kind.”

“And you’ve got a knack for moonwalking into war zones. Remember the mess that was your last girlfriend? Unlike some people, my ‘shits to give’ limit is, as described, _limited_.” Jihoon sighs, exasperated and exaggerated but not without a touch of sympathy. “Help me finish number five, then you can live your dream as another helpless yet painfully relatable love interest.”

And so Wonwoo does—help Jihoon finish number five, that is, not the love interest bit. Wonwoo makes a conscious effort not to mention anything more about Mingyu or problems related Mingyu for the rest of the period, mostly because he doesn’t want to know if Jihoon’s habit of maiming people is as “in the past” as is claimed.

Especially since Jihoon has the propensity to make exceptions to his own statements sometimes. At the end of Math class, he did have one shit to give.

“I actually think you should give Mingyu a chance,” Jihoon tells Wonwoo, sincerely. “Seungcheol says he’s a really nice person. Hard-working, a team player, not afraid to take risks but also thinks things through. Don’t give the kid such a hard time.”

Wonwoo looks even more confused, unsure of the connection between Mingyu and the most athletic person in the existence of everything. “How does he know Seungcheol?”

“Oh, you didn’t know?” Jihoon looks contemplative in an amused sort of way, as if Wonwoo is blanking on something ingrained in common knowledge. There is an excruciatingly long pause before Jihoon says, “Mingyu made varsity basketball.”

Like many of Jihoon’s statements after dramatic suspense, what he says feels like whiplash generously flavored with Korea’s lackluster enforcement of road safety regulations. But this time the surprise isn’t in the statement, rather the question of why Mingyu didn’t tell Wonwoo himself.

Then again, why did he have to? And why was Wonwoo expecting something like that from Mingyu? Outside of school, they haven’t even hung out by themselves yet. _Yet._ Whoops, there Wonwoo goes, expecting things from people again.

“Do you know when practice starts?” he asks, trying and failing to be toneless.

“Today, after school,” Jihoon answers with more success.

 

 

 

It doesn’t take long for “today, after school” to arrive when one doesn’t pay much attention to their last class of the day, which is what most students do regardless of their connection to student council presidents.

Twice in one school year is Wonwoo’s winning record for how many times he’s voluntarily headed to the gym. Nothing else could possibly be a clearer mark of madness. But there is also madness in the way Wonwoo’s stomach feels so warm all the time, in the way the air around him never stops smelling fresh and sweetly rich. _Just take off the jacket_ doesn’t even work when the thing is practically plastered to his body now.

There’s no way Wonwoo is letting Mingyu get away with whatever he’s infected Wonwoo with. What an asshole, giving Wonwoo _feelings_ of some sort and not doing anything about it like it’s no big deal.

“Kim Mingyu!” Wonwoo shouts the second he spots a familiar silhouette at the gym doors.

The figure freezes, and by the time Wonwoo gets to Mingyu, there’s a searing number of things he wants to say. _Why didn’t you tell me you made varsity? Why haven’t you approached me at my locker again? Or invited me to ice cream? Why were you so adamant in talking to me in the first place? And why am I the same way now?_

But all that comes out of Wonwoo’s mouth, between the tired breaths, is simply, “Congratulations. For making the team.”

Mingyu raises his eyebrows. He looks good in his training clothes, Wonwoo thinks. “You ran all the way from Psych to tell me that?”

“How do you know I had— actually, never mind, you probably know more about me than I do.”

“I’m really sorry, but my coaches are really strict about being on time—”

Fuck it, Wonwoo really is going to say it all, and Mingyu is going to listen with both his ears instead of his mouth. “You made varsity and didn’t tell me? Why don’t we talk as much anymore? Are you avoiding me? What happened to testing my abilities as a self-declared ice cream expert? You promised me a ‘next time’ but you’re doing a shit job of living up to it. Just, I don’t…” Wonwoo sighs heavily, running a hand through his hair because he doesn’t know where else to put it. “Are we friends? Or am I just another student you’re being nice to because it’s your job?”

Mingyu bites his lip, giving Wonwoo that annoying look like there’s something he wants to voice out but won’t let himself. Wonwoo wants to shake those words out of him, twist Mingyu up and wring out his true thoughts, but Wonwoo still doesn’t trust himself enough to get remotely physical with Mingyu.

Wonwoo is absolutely primed to continue his spitfire spiel, a novel of questions ready for launch, but he’s stopped by Mingyu’s suddenly distant look.

Wonwoo follows his gaze and turns around. He’s surprised to find a girl, a pretty one, hiding behind the corner of the hallway. The atmosphere suddenly thrust upon them hits Wonwoo like a sledgehammer with what he thinks is about to happen.

“Hello,” Wonwoo says to the girl. She jumps. He jabs a thumb at Mingyu. “Are you looking for this guy? I’ll get out of your way if you promise to bring him back in one piece. Or two, I’m not picky.”

The girl resembles someone Wonwoo kind of but doesn’t remember from his Geography class last year, the one subject every sophomore has to take no matter how miserable it is. She looks so nervous, even cute in the way she’s gripping onto her shorts like they’re her lifeline. Wonwoo worries that she might self-combust, but that’s probably normal for girls when they talk to Mingyu.

“Um, I’m actually looking for you,” she says.

There’s an awkward gap of silence before Wonwoo registers the girl’s words. He points to himself and says, dumbly, “Me?”

“Y-Yeah. And I, uh, have? Found you? If you have the, er, time?”

Wonwoo squints at her. “Have we shared a class before?”

“Yes, we have!” She looks so washed over with relief, Wonwoo thinks her knees might give. “We had Geography, last year.”

“Awesome, so my memory isn’t completely hopeless after all.” Wonwoo smiles cordially. Behind him, he senses Mingyu shift the weight of his feet. “Do you need something?”

“D-D-Did you find a l-letter on your desk this morning? In Japanese class?”

“The one with a heart sticker on it? Yeah, I read it. It was nice— _oh_ , did you write it?”

And so the conversation goes like this: the girl confesses her crush to a pleasantly surprised Wonwoo, saying she’s liked him since last year, and he’s even more handsome now—the works. This isn’t a first for Wonwoo, exactly, but he can count on his fingers how many times he’s been on the receiving end of confessions. It’ll end up the same way as the previous instances, but that doesn’t stop him from puffing out his chest and savoring the seconds. It helps the ego.

When the girl leaves, disappointed but somewhat appeased by Wonwoo’s apologies, he turns around and is ready to un-pause his tirade of bullet-sized frustrations until they get through Mingyu’s thick skull. But the intensity of Mingyu’s stare vaporizes every thought on Wonwoo’s tongue.

“Do you want to watch our game this week?” asks Mingyu.

Wonwoo opens his mouth, closes it, then opens it again. “Excuse me?”

“We have a game this week,” Mingyu repeats. Well, that’s the weirdest tone Wonwoo’s ever heard. “It’s kind of short notice, but do you want to watch it?”

“Did you not hear—”

“It’s on Friday.”

“I don’t really—”

“I won’t be doing much, probably just sitting on a bench,” Mingyu interrupts again, a fire in his eyes that makes him look both adamant and hopelessly sheepish at the same time. “But I’m sure the seniors and juniors will make it interesting. You can bring your friends, too, if you want.”

 _There’s not much point in watching if you’re not doing anything_ , Wonwoo wants to say. _There’s not much point if we’re not watching together, but we can’t do that if you’re actually on the team._ He decides against voicing either of those. They sound too gross in his head.

“Okay,” Wonwoo concedes with great effort, like Mingyu’s canines ripped it from his throat and threw it to the air. “Gotta tell the ‘rents first, but I can probably make it.”

“Promise?” Yikes, a verbal contract.

“Promise.” Double yikes, a binding agreement.

Even though Wonwoo knows that, whatever this verbal battle is, the end result isn’t what he hoped for considering the staggering none-out-of-many answers he received. But Wonwoo is terribly defenseless when he’s so lost in the impossible, resolute brightness of Mingyu’s smile.

“I’ll see you then,” says Mingyu, expectant and extra determined to get one last look at Wonwoo before heading in for practice.

 

 

 

When Mingyu suggested inviting friends, Wonwoo doubts he meant inviting everyone from People Wonwoo Talks To More Than Once a Month & Co. But Wonwoo’s entire life thus far is closest in analogy to a snowball, he realizes belatedly, as he lines up to buy an absurd combination of rice balls, ramen, and seaweed-flavored…stuff for too many people.

Jihoon, Joshua and Jeonghan already planned on attending with this season being Seungcheol’s last, so the only person Wonwoo bothered asking was Jun. But then he had to go and invite Minghao, too, from whom Soonyoung was livid learning that Wonwoo didn’t invite him as well. In response, Soonyoung made the executive decision to invite himself and the rest of Mingyu’s gang of sunshine and rainbows, but Soonyoung was too many GOOD LUCK, KICK SOME ASS, and HAVE MY BABIES MINGYU signs too late. Tame by most standards for boys their age, but cringe-worthy regardless.

Then everyone had to go and sit together like some merry band of kindred spirits, as if the sudden amplification of noise and manly hoots would similarly amplify the team’s performance. This is probably the first time male enthusiasm annihilated the female cheers at a school basketball game, but at least it’ll give the school news site something interesting to write about.

By the time Wonwoo, a temporary hatred in his heart for democratic voting systems, wobbles back to the gym with food precariously balanced on every limb, the guest team has finished warming up, leaving the court for the home team to do the same.

It’s harder to spot Mingyu when most of the team is tall; Mingyu’s height has been Wonwoo’s go-to marker of identification. But Wonwoo eventually spots him, incessantly jumpy as if on hot coals and bottom lip worried between teeth. The contours of muscle on Mingyu’s arms and legs are sharp in some places, soft in others, and shift around like the time-lapse of an evolving landscape.

Wonwoo wonders if Mingyu is as nervous as he looks. Then again, the internal turmoil tends to be magnificently more tumultuous than what’s outside.

The noise of the crowd rises to a roar the moment the team members start lining up. “What are they doing now?” Wonwoo half-whispers, half-yells to Junhui as Seungcheol sprints, jumps, and gently tosses the ball into the hoop. His movements are incredibly powerful yet graceful, almost artistic, despite the explicit things about Seungcheol’s ass spewing from Jeonghan’s elegant face.

“They’re doing layups,” replies Junhui. “They normally do a couple rounds of this, then a couple rounds of blocking and side-stepping and passing, then they huddle.”

“What’s the point?”

“Warms up the muscles, most importantly. Also great for riling up the crowd and impressing girls.”

Wonwoo snorts, paying no attention to the way his chest constricts more and more with every step Mingyu takes to his turn. The game hasn’t even started yet, but Wonwoo’s body is doing a grand job of playing Simon Says with Mingyu’s body throughout its show of anxiety. To distract himself, Wonwoo continues voicing every question about the sport he can think of, but nothing is enough to placate the nervous thrum in his ribcage.

“Weird,” starts Junhui as he watches Wonwoo visibly wince at the layup Mingyu misses. “I’ve never seen you so interested in sports before. Other than the time Jihoon threatened you to watch one of my badminton matches, you’ve hardly shown any interest in school functions.”

“What’s your point?”

“Does it have something to do with your new friend?”

“Pft, are your language grades okay? Because I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Wonwoo’s eyes, ferociously trained on Mingyu in the hope that sheer willpower will lift both Mingyu’s frown and slumped shoulders, tell Junhui otherwise. “I’m just curious, that’s all.”

“Uh huh.” If the word “unimpressed” needed an example picture, it would be Junhui’s face at that very moment.

But Junhui is a decent enough human being to stop asking questions (he’s Wonwoo’s favorite, honestly) and wait for the game to start instead. Wonwoo tries his best to do the same, even with Jihoon kindly reminding him to “stop fucking up your nails” with how much Wonwoo is biting his fingers off.

It isn’t long before the referee’s whistle thunders in the air, signaling the first quarter like an alarm. Wonwoo is given enough freedom, at least, to indulge in some peace of mind with Mingyu absent in the starting lineup. Wonwoo even indulges in those _he’s cute_ thoughts again with the excited bounce in Mingyu’s feet and that endless supply of encouraging shouts.

To be honest, Wonwoo’s hibernating interest in sports is still as dead as an amateur squirrel in the snow. The entire gym still feels like a claustrophobe’s and socially anxious person’s worst nightmare, and nothing—and he means _nothing—_ can alleviate his loathing for organized cheering in sports for the single reason that it sounds like an over-enthusiastic cult ritual. School spirit, his ass; dying from Satan’s hellfire is not Wonwoo’s ideal way to go.

But, in the universe’s elaborate desire to spice things up in Wonwoo’s life, he sometimes finds himself victim to a collection of circumstances that make him do unexpected things. For example, enchanted clothing and enchanting smiles have broken him and make him do something school-related on a Friday afternoon, while the escalating desire to watch some dumb pretty boy with a magnetic aura shoot a bouncy ball into a metal ring keeps Wonwoo from fleeing the tightly-packed premises. And this is all in spite of the spine problems the wooden bleachers are definitely giving him.

Wonwoo doesn’t know why he’s here. Maybe it has to do with the laser beams of excitement Mingyu shoots with his eyes when he spots Wonwoo in the crowd. He can’t remember the last time anyone looked that excited to see him.

In the end, Wonwoo doesn’t feel the least bit crotchety by the time third quarter finishes. He hadn’t even noticed the time fly so quickly, even when all he’s done was stare at Mingyu yelling vague words of G-rated encouragements.

“Man, I’m glad we have a big lead now. The upset the other team almost had in the second quarter seriously had my heart racing,” says Junhui, whistling with a hand to his chest. “Wasn’t that crazy, Wonwoo?”

“Yeah dude, it was insane!”

“You weren’t paying attention, were you?”

“Nope.”

Junhui elbows his friend. “You know, the game is on the court, not on the benches.”

Wonwoo elbows him back. “I know, I’m not stupid.”

“Well—”

“Finish that sentence and I am never helping you with your grammar worksheets ever again.”

Mingyu spots the two of them staring at him, and he waves, canines recognizable even from far away. Wonwoo does nothing with his throat going taut again like the last time Mingyu recognized him in the crowd, so Junhui grabs Wonwoo’s wrist and waves at Mingyu for the both of them. Mingyu laughs. Wonwoo does not.

Okay, so Junhui is not a favorite. Wonwoo takes a mental note to later reorganize his emotional attachment to his friends.

Fourth quarter is upon them as quickly as the plague in 1400’s Europe now that the coach puts forth whom Wonwoo imagines to be the least-experienced team members. It’s so nerve-wracking, seeing Mingyu play for real. But Wonwoo has every ounce of faith (that he hasn’t abandoned to suppressed memories) in Mingyu’s skills. From what Wonwoo knows about him, the kid can do anything. Surely getting a ball through some woven strings won’t be too hard.

It turns out that the problem lies not in Mingyu’s skills or the team dynamic—it’s the flat-out lack of actual game experience at the varsity level. Even Wonwoo, who has a less than zero understanding for sports, can tell that Mingyu isn’t at his best, is too jittery with his eyes and hands and feet like he’s losing control of his own body. He misses shots he could’ve made if he wasn’t so impatient, loses track of stray passes and team members, and the list goes on the more Mingyu himself realizes the bullet points.

A wail of a whistle signals the end of the game, the home team still with a considerable lead despite the flubs in the fourth quarter. No new member leaves the game unscathed with their own areas of improvement, but, from the empty acceptances of congratulations and dull smiles that don’t fit his face, Mingyu is definitely taking it the hardest.

“Don’t worry, new players almost always mess up their first game,” Junhui says with a hand on Wonwoo’s shoulder. The gym is slowly filtering empty like an hourglass. “Considering how little training time the team had before this game, I’d say Dream Boy did a great job. That surprise three-pointer he made towards the end was a doozy.”

“No arguments here,” Wonwoo replies. “But I don’t know if he knows that.”

Before anyone has the chance of declaring an obligatory celebration at The Ice Cream Shop, Wonwoo excuses himself to the bathroom.

 

 

 

“You know, regardless of what dads say, sitting and waiting on a toilet for an unnecessarily long time doesn’t make pooping any easier.”

“…Wonwoo?”

“‘Sup buttercup. You’re definitely more of a Bubbles person, but I couldn’t think of a cool rhyme for that name.”

“How’d you know I’d be here?”

“I’m the president of the literature club. Reading is for more than just books, you know.”

“And I thought my jokes were bad.” Even with a door between them, Wonwoo hears Mingyu’s voice crack at the last word. Mingyu chuckles through it anyway, and the sound is heartbreaking. “Then again, I am a pretty open book.”

“If that was the case,” says Wonwoo, “then this bathroom would be filled with girls dying to either bathe in your holy water tears or sell them on eBay. Luckily you’ve still got some unforthcoming bone somewhere in your body.”

Mingyu laughs slightly louder this time, which is more reassuring than anything. “You use too many big words.”

“Reading is great. You should try it sometime.”

“Where are the others?”

“Not here, thank goodness.” Wonwoo leans against the wall across the bathroom stall Mingyu has locked himself in.

Every clipped sob Wonwoo hears cuts straight into his tight, tight, _tight_ chest. It feels utterly wrong, a glitch in reality almost, for someone like Mingyu to be anything other than laughing or smiling or spectacularly radiant.

Is time still passing? Is the planet still spinning? In this little space, Wonwoo has no idea, nor would he really care to know with an issue more pressing to worry about. He doesn’t have any tears left to share, but he still has those stupid feelings Mingyu has given him, and Wonwoo is spilling over with them like an overfilled jug.

A long silence, mottled with sniffles and sneaker squeaks, passes between them before Wonwoo can broach what he wants to address. “Tough stuff out there, huh?”

“I messed up,” Mingyu mutters bitterly. “A lot.”

“The team still won.”

“All I did was screw up.”

“I know it may be hard to believe,” says Wonwoo, slowly but gently, “but screwing up is normal. People do that all the time. Unless you really are an alien, then my advice is void.”

Mingyu’s sharp inhale is snotty, kind of noisy and obnoxious like it wants the school to know just how frustrated Kim Mingyu is with himself. But he still sounds tired, the way someone would be from crying after suppressing the urge for ages. At least Mingyu is at ease enough to sound honest like that; anything quieter and Wonwoo would be extremely concerned.

“Putting out new players for a set win is understandable. I get that,” says Mingyu. “But my performance out there was so…embarrassing. I don’t think I’ve ever messed up that many times. Coach didn’t even talk to me much after the game, just said to train harder for next time.”

“Were those his exact words? To train harder for next time?”

“Yeah. I think so.”

“Well, look at it this way.”

Wonwoo lifts himself from the wall he was leaning against to stand directly in front of Mingyu’s stall, face only a few centimeters from touching the door.

“First of all, you’re a really great guy,” says Wonwoo, more quiet and reserved than intended, “But you have to realize that you aren’t perfect. You can’t be perfect, and that’s okay. Why? Because you’re so many other things that make you incomparable. I’m not going to list them out because we’d be stuck here until the freshies graduate, so I’ll say this: remember those headphones you took?”

“I do.”

“They were my uncle’s. Before he died, he told me something that has stuck with me and kept me going for longer than I can say: the rainy days make the sunny days even sunnier. So today may have been a shit day, but the world is still going to turn, tomorrow is still going to come, and you’re still going to be your amazing self, okay? Besides,” Wonwoo’s voice lowers, and his face turns unbearably hot, “your coach said you’d have a next time. The Mingyu I know understands just how important a next time is. So cheer up already. Global happiness index of the school, remember?”

Neither of them say anything after that in taciturn agreement to let Wonwoo’s words settle in the space between them. Wonwoo replays those words over and over his head like a burning reel, a product of being the eldest child and having an excessive enthusiasm for dramatic monologues. The white noise in his legs grow stronger, but he can’t move.

Wonwoo doesn’t regret what he said, but he wishes he could have said more. Said something about how incredibly capable Mingyu is, about the impossibility of someone being smart and handsome and funny all at the same time—about how Mingyu is the very embodiment of Prince Charming with an athletic aptitude that forgoes the horse altogether. Mingyu is ridiculous. He’s a fairytale brought to life, and it hurts to see him fighting through a nightmare.

“Do you really think that?” Wonwoo suddenly hears. The stall is completely silent except for Mingyu’s words.

To say that Wonwoo is startled by the clarity of Mingyu’s voice is an understatement. “Well, yeah, because life is a learning process, and learning means you’ve gotta make mistakes sometimes and— I said all that extra mushy stuff out loud, didn’t I?”

“You did.”

Man, the universe really does hate Wonwoo. That, or he needs to start getting his bad habits in order.

“Did you mean all that?” repeats Mingyu. “It’s okay if you didn’t.”

If Wonwoo finds out that Mingyu is just manipulating him with pity points, then screw inheritance money and never stepping foot in a hospital again, because Wonwoo will definitely drag this kid to an early grave.

Wonwoo eventually mumbles out, “I wouldn’t have said all that if I didn’t mean it, you idiot.”

One moment, he’s groaning his brains out in the desperate hope that those stupid feelings will follow (the attempt is ultimately unsuccessful). The next moment, the stall door is open for Mingyu to sweep Wonwoo into his arms, into an embrace as tight and suffocating as Wonwoo’s chest was earlier, but this is significantly nicer. More like the Mingyu Wonwoo is familiar with.

In the grand scheme of things, something like this is so laughably minuscule to the point that it shouldn’t even garner a fraction of the millions of thoughts rushing through Wonwoo’s mind. But he lets himself enjoy it—lets himself feel like he did something that mattered—for as long as it lasts.

“Gross, you didn’t wash your hands,” says Wonwoo with some trouble.

“Totally worth it,” Mingyu whispers a little breathlessly. “Thank you. Did you know that you’re actually the best person ever?”

Wonwoo is doing his best to inhale and exhale at a steady pace, though he’s doing a terrible job of ignoring the weight of Mingyu’s body against his. “You make it sound like I told you the secret to eternal youth. I can think of at least eleven TedTalks and three middle-aged inspirational speakers who could regurgitate the same things I said.”

Mingyu hums. “I’m glad we’re only a year apart. If you were middle-aged, this would be phenomenally more awkward.”

“Well, my questionably-existent soul is that of an old man.”

“Don’t ruin the moment.”

“Are hugs not awkward?”

“They’re only awkward if you don’t do them enough.”

After a pause as awkward as the hug itself, Mingyu suddenly jerks his head back to look at Wonwoo. Their arms are still around each other, Mingyu’s being especially stubborn around Wonwoo’s waist, but Wonwoo is too self-conscious about his own awkward noodle limbs on Mingyu’s back to notice.

“Are you not a hugger?” asks Mingyu.

Wonwoo rolls his eyes. “Huh, I wonder what gave you that idea? My question, which clearly implies it, or the awkwardness of the hug itself?”

“I don’t see anything wrong with it,” Mingyu says with so much honesty that Wonwoo nearly chokes on it. “I think you’re a great hugger.” The statement is punctuated with a squeeze.

Wonwoo has no idea how to retaliate but to pinch Mingyu through his jersey, only realizing then just how thin and light the material is. “If I’m a great hugger, then you’re a bloodthirsty psychopath and we’ve entered a different dimension where we’re alternate iterations of ourselves.”

“Who says I’m not a bloodthirsty psychopath in our own dimension?”

“You’re made of sugar, spice, and everything nice. Of course you’re not a psychopath.”

“You’re right,” says Mingyu, bringing Wonwoo to his chest again. “Like you said before, this version of me right now is just fine.”

Surely there’s a limit to how long hugs are allowed to last, and even if there isn’t, Wonwoo is sure that his body may spontaneously combust in reaction to extended periods of physical kindness. Mingyu, and how unacceptably comfortable he’s getting, seems far too willing to test that assumption, but Wonwoo is tired and in dire need of unnecessarily spiked blood sugar levels.

“The other guys are at The Ice Cream Shop to celebrate the team win,” Wonwoo says as he pushes Mingyu away and smooths out the crinkles in his shirt with one hand. The other hand is around Mingyu’s wrist, tugging him forward toward the bathroom's exit. “Pretty sure that it’s just an excuse for more ice cream, but your buddies will probably castrate me and throw me into the Han if I don’t bring you with me.”

Mingyu makes a strange noise somewhere between an amused laugh and a cry of horror. “And you call _me_ the bloodthirsty psychopath. You need to stop watching so many scary movies.”

“Aw, is being in high school scary for the big baby?”

“It’s not that scary when you have great friends to help you.”

“Thanks, Dora. Now can you get your ass moving? There’s a discomforting amount of socializing I have to get over to reach my weekly quota of sweet, carb-filled death.”

“You have a weird affinity for children’s shows. And metaphors. I’m worried.”

 _“Move_ , you prince-faced jerk.”

Mingyu gives Wonwoo another dumb, bright smile, and everything seems right again.

Halfway to The Ice Cream Shop, Wonwoo realizes that he hasn’t let go of Mingyu’s wrist since they left the bathroom at school. Considering how much of a rollercoaster today was, he isn’t particularly surprised that the gesture slipped his mind.

Wonwoo eventually decides to not let go. He already surpassed his awkwardness quota for the day, and suddenly letting go would likely add to it.

Besides, if Mingyu ever noticed, he sure made a conscious effort not to pull away.

 

 

 

No matter what Soonyoung says, Wonwoo actually put up a good fight this time. He used his “big words” and everything. Alas, Wonwoo can only surrender to Mingyu’s stubborn, glittering insistences to treat him to ice cream again.

When Wonwoo asks why for the dozenth time, the most straightforward answer Mingyu gives him is, “Even if my team won, I still lost to you again.”

Wonwoo has no idea what that means, but he supposes it has something to do with the face-reddening monologue he shoved down Mingyu’s ear holes after the game. He tells himself it was an entirely consensual matter. He even got a hug out of it.

While Mingyu is off sweet-talking (his default style of speech) the lady behind the glass displays for a few of the Superman specials Wonwoo suggested, Jeonghan moves from sitting beside Seungcheol and into the Mingyu-less space beside Wonwoo.

“What,” Wonwoo says at Jeonghan’s suggestive expression. “I don’t know if your eyebrows trying to breakdance or fly off your face.”

Jeonghan seems unfazed by Wonwoo’s harsh judgement of his brow wiggles. “You and Mingyu took a while getting here.”

“Wow, Yoon Jeonghan is actually stating facts. That’s a first.”

“You’re such a fucker.”

“Says the original fucker,” Wonwoo deadpans. “What do you want? Finally realized that Joshua is getting married before you are because he’s actually a good person?”

Seungcheol snickers. “Triple ouch. That’s a record.”

Jeonghan blows a raspberry into Wonwoo’s face, and Wonwoo wipes the precipitation from his nose before shoving the cackling senior away. It’s a shame Jeonghan doesn’t fall off the seat. “Is it a crime for me to be happy?” asks Jeonghan.

Wonwoo shoots him a cynical, narrowed glare as if to say, “Of course it’s a crime.” Then he heaves a long-suffering sigh and responds, as begrudgingly and as sardonically as possible, “No it is not. Please, grace me with your reasons for happiness, O’ Yoon the Great. I’m so curious.”

Jeonghan primly adjusts his fringe, as if nearly getting arrested last year for snorting powdered donut powder beside a police station is no big deal. To this day, Wonwoo still has no idea how Joshua and Seungcheol befriended Jeonghan.

“I’m happy because you’re glowing, my dear.”

“Because I’m Asian?”

“You’re _glowing,”_ Jeonghan reiterates at a higher octave.

“Because I’m Asian,”  Wonwoo says again while imitating Jeonghan’s broken tones.

“What he’s trying to say is that you look happier these days,” says Seungcheol.

“Don’t deny it!” Jeonghan prods Wonwoo in the chest with great fervor, but the offending hand is quickly slapped away. “Your skin has been glowing for months. You smile a lot. You are swimming in oceans of bliss and I have a strong suspicion that it has everything to do with someone whose name rhymes with Wim Wingyu.”

“And that’s why you’d be a terrible rapper.” Wonwoo wills his own existence to not show any shade of emotion. “Have you ever stopped to think that maybe I’ve just become a happier person? Or that I’ve finally let go of my earthly tethers, freed of the perpetual cycle of rebirth, and am now in a state of Nirvana?”

“Suggesting that in question form is answer enough.” Jeonghan presses closer to Wonwoo. “I think he makes you happy. That Mingyu boy.”

“Yeah, and so do video games. Doesn’t mean I’m asking them out to lunch.”

“Tell that to the creepy print-out of Zelda in your wallet.”

“She is the first and only princess in my life. I am still offended by your desecration of her royal image with that bedsheet of a costume you wore on Halloween.”

“Hey, I worked really hard on that,” Jeonghan says, offended. He hooks his arm around Wonwoo’s and bats his eyelashes too close to Wonwoo’s face. “C’mon, I’ve never seen you treat anyone as nicely as you treat Mingyu. Not even during that week-long thing you had for me when you thought I was a girl.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, it was only five days,” corrects Wonwoo, reaching new, unexplored levels of being done with Jeonghan. “Then I figured out what kind of person you are.”

“Fourth ouch of the night. Go for gold and make it five?”

“You’re a dumbass.”

“Weak, but I’ll take it.” Jeonghan chuckles, a soft and gentle sound that actually befits his appearance. He leans against the cushion of the booth with more seriousness than Wonwoo thought possible from him. “Huh. Seungcheol, Joshua and I are graduating this year. We did so much yet so little, like those four years were too long and too short at the same time. It’s kind of insane, now that I think about it.”

Seungcheol’s input is a simple nod. Wonwoo didn’t cry for Mingyu earlier, but he almost tears up at Jeonghan’s evident knack for shooting the realest of facts at the worst of times.

“Remember last year’s December Celebration party?” Jeonghan asks, sounding strangely wistful for a night full of regrets. A while back, they decided to squeeze New Year’s, Christmas, and Joshua’s birthday into one unfortunate night of too much alcohol and joke presents.

Wonwoo’s tears retreat back into their ducts as Seungcheol pretends to gag. “Who doesn’t?” Seuncheol scoffs. “You downed two bottles of soju and puked everything out on Jihoon, who would’ve strangled you if he wasn’t drunk on three. At least he held it in. Joshua’s mom almost fainted at the stain you left on her carpet.”

“Ah, good times, good times.” Jeonghan nods reverently. “I remember that we also decided to go for wishes instead of resolutions because none of us goobers can stick to those darned things. Want to know what mine was?”

Wonwoo arches a brow. “Doesn’t revealing your wish make it null?”

“Not when it’s come true already.” The look Jeonghan gives him is filled with so much gratification and sentimentality that the desire to cry comes rushing back with a vengeance. “I really am glad to see you so happy and lively, Wonwoo. Do your hyung a favor and don’t let this chance go.”

After a few moments of silence, Wonwoo scoots away from Jeonghan and closer to the window overlooking the streets, littered with bright lights and the beginnings of snow. Wonwoo tries to push the tears away, but he still dabs at his eyes with his shirt sleeve because the napkin dispensers are always empty on Friday nights. Today has been far too much for him to handle, and Jeonghan invading the Personal Bubble with nostalgia and goopy statements about happiness are not to be tolerated if Wonwoo wants to stay upright enough to get home safely.

Seungcheol looks like he’s about to interject, but Jeonghan throws a hand up to stop him. At least Jeonghan knows when Wonwoo drops into a quieter headspace. He just wants to spend the remnants of his energy thinking is all.

In the background, Soonyoung is spouting some gibberish about the difference between ducks and geese to the music of Seungkwan’s undying love for Girls’ Generation. Chan, Junhui, Seokmin, and Jihoon are locked into some tag team dance battle with Minghao as its confused but thoroughly entertained judge. Joshua is quietly discussing the pros and cons of California and New York with Hansol, their sanity somehow making the madness of everyone else feel comforting.

Mingyu arrives with discounted ice cream in his hands. He looks mildly shocked at the silence of Wonwoo’s booth, stark against the Friday night mayhem, then looks more-than-mildly worried at Wonwoo, who has his back turned to the rest of them.

Mingyu sits next to Seungcheol. “What’d I miss?”

Jeonghan glances between Mingyu and Wonwoo, and thoughtfully settles on, “Is that the Superman special? You have great taste, my friend.”

 

 

 

Something changes in Mingyu. But “change” implies something tangible—something obvious to people other than Wonwoo, and what Mingyu does is nothing of the sort.

It starts off with a small poke to the back while passing down the halls. Bumping shoulders on the way to another ice cream outing. Nudging knees when they’re inevitably seated together in the same booth they always sit at. All these things are as hidden as they are painfully evident, the same way Mingyu would whisper to Wonwoo like they’re the only people in a sea of conversations.

But it doesn’t stop there. Buying snacks turns into making lunch. Midnight texts good night turn into coffee-flavored wake-up calls by the lockers before Japanese. Hanging out in an overpopulated cafeteria turns into sitting at that one staircase no one ever uses—but there they are, using it like it’s their own private world.

“Why are we here again?” asks Wonwoo, legs in Mingyu’s lap and with no intention of moving. He holds out some of the lunch Mingyu made with his chopsticks.

There’s a strange satisfaction at being the center of Mingyu’s attention lately, Wonwoo realizes, like something warm and comforting as the weather hits peak chill. But then it quickly turns into something sweet and fluttery and _addicting_ and it all hits Wonwoo like a truck of every feeling he’s suppressed for god knows how long.

Mingyu smiles and Wonwoo’s chest aches in the best way possible. “Because we’re alone here,” Mingyu says, taking the food with his mouth in a smooth, practiced motion.

 

 

 

Of course, Mingyu has to go and invite Wonwoo to hang out at his place. A week before exams. For something attractively dubbed “Bros Night In.”

It’s a monthly thing Mingyu and his friends do: everyone hangs out to game (i.e. defile relationships with Mario Kart), order shitty take-out food, and watch a movie. This month is Mingyu’s turn to provide accommodations, though his parents refuse to put anything remotely unhealthy in their son after his food poisoning episode last time, so the children are limited to popcorn and fruit juice.

“You have really good health insurance, right?” Wonwoo asks as he helps Mingyu organize bowls in the kitchen.

“The best,” Mingyu responds, tapping his nose and taking the last bag of popped kernels from the microwave.

Mingyu nearly drops the bag from the heat of the steam for the third time, and the high-pitched yelp of horror accompanying the almost-accident doesn’t help in quelling Wonwoo’s laughter. It’s not mean, Wonwoo will insist, simply a natural response that’s built upon a foundation of unsaid understanding and Wonwoo’s hundreds of assurances that he isn’t laughing _at_ Mingyu, he’s laughing _with_ Mingyu. Then Mingyu laughs out of habit, too, and Wonwoo’s answer becomes harder to refute.

The others have _Ponyo_ miraculously set up in the living room by the time the popcorn and juice packs are dispersed. Mingyu is the resident softie for Ghibli films and had originally vouched for _Howl’s Moving Castle_ because Wonwoo is a sinner by nature and hasn’t watched it yet, but Mingyu was immediately met with collective disdain since watching it would make this the “fourth fucking time already, Jesus _Christ_ , pick a different one” and no one questions Minghao when he’s snappy.

“I can’t help that it’s my favorite,” Mingyu had mumbled, sipping on his allegedly one-hundred-percent apple juice like some grumpy, giant toddler.

“I know it is. You mention it all the time,” Wonwoo had said, affectionately pinching the big baby’s cheek.

The lag of the old DVD player buffers a giant war over who gets which seat. Chan, Seungkwan, and Minghao destroy everyone in rock-paper-scissors and overtake the couch, leaving the floor to the rest of the loser peasants who fight over the mattress Mingyu dragged from his bedroom. Of course, luck has Mingyu losing out on his own domain to Seokmin, Hansol, and Wonwoo, but Wonwoo pities him enough to abandon the mattress and sit beside him on the floor.

Hansol hands Wonwoo a blanket to wrap around Mingyu, which seems to lessen the bitterness of realizing that absolute power during Bros Night In is still subject to uprisings.

“The kindness in this room is overwhelming,” Wonwoo says as he slides into the blanket batwing Mingyu extends.

“We’re helping him learn what the real world is like,” Seungkwan retorts airily.

“Also,” Seokmin adds, “this is payback for stealing from our lunches all the time.”

Wonwoo hisses, bumping an arm against Mingyu. “Ooh, not cool dude. Karma’s a bitch when it comes to food.”

Chan claps emphatically. “That’s what I keep saying!”

Mingyu mutters random things to himself, too quiet and too incoherent for Wonwoo to tease him with confidence. But, by the time the movie finally starts, he hears Mingyu say something around the lines of, “You’re going to watch _Howl’s_ _Moving Castle_ with me. I’m going to make you watch it with me. One day. Without these evil people disguised as my friends.”

Considering how often Mingyu has dragged Wonwoo into situations involving excessive levels of socializing, Wonwoo almost utters a scathing “Over my dead body” out of habit, but the untimely disconnect between brain and mouth simply provides a pleasant, “I’ll hold you to that.”

Unsurprisingly, Wonwoo falls asleep at some point. He’d warned Mingyu of this early on. Studying for two in-class essays and a last-minute electromagnetic induction test makes a person lose pieces of their living essence, let alone tires them out.

No, Mingyu didn’t force Wonwoo into being here, and yes, Wonwoo could have opted out of movie night or promised to attend the next one. But Wonwoo didn’t because he’s stupid and refused to make Mingyu sad and is now laying in the bed he made for himself. Well, laying against a headrest shaped just like Mingyu, but the principle is the same.

The loud, rhythmic drawl of rainstorms from the movie briefly wakes up Wonwoo; people typically fall asleep to the sound of raindrops, but his body has always preferred being somewhat awake to witness it.

Wonwoo is somewhere in the limbo between awake and not, his senses half-alert enough to distinguish a few things. Minghao has completely overtaken the couch, leaving Seungkwan and Chan for dead on the floor in their pool of emotions. Seokmin’s hair is a picture of failure to catch any popcorn in his mouth, and Hansol is probably taking a dump, given how long he’s been in the bathroom.

Then there’s Mingyu, whose shoulder beneath Wonwoo’s cheek feels less bony and covered in a thin house shirt. Instead, it’s firm and muscled and clothed in thick sweatpants because _of course_ the center of the Earth has pulled Wonwoo’s head into Mingyu’s lap like the magnets for clichés they’ve both become.

It’s not uncomfortable, being on Mingyu’s lap, especially since his leg day circuits have improved significantly. Wonwoo thinks that it’s nice to have gentle fingers carding his hair, and the protective weight of a hand on his chest, and the affectionate smile he knows Mingyu is sending him. He sleepily presses a finger to where Mingyu’s bellybutton may be, and is rewarded with a bark of surprise and warning tug at the scalp. Wonwoo laughs, almost silent, then returns to sleep.

When Wonwoo wakes up for real, the movie is already over and he’s defeated the purpose of going to a movie night in the first place. Everyone else is in the kitchen for clean-up duty because Wonwoo was the only one nice enough to help Mingyu with food prep. Against the noise, it seems like the lull of the TV static has sung Mingyu to sleep.

Everything about Mingyu loosens in sleep. There is a lot of power and control Mingyu expends in carrying himself the way he does, Wonwoo realizes then. Strength, poise, congeniality—they’ve all given way to a delicate sense of peace in Mingyu’s relaxed posture, and it’s both humbling and a little saddening to see.

Wonwoo sits up and carefully tilts Mingyu’s head back against the armrest of the couch to relieve the neck strain. He doesn’t pull away, letting his hand linger on Mingyu’s skin, which is as warm and as soft as it looks.

He expects himself to ruminate exclusively over the loyalty of Mingyu’s good looks, even in sleep, just as any other person probably would. But Wonwoo stopped being just any other person long ago, so he thinks about Mingyu’s snores instead, about how cute they are and how the soothing rumble reminds Wonwoo of very distant thunder. Wonwoo thumbs away at the drool on Mingyu’s cheek where the barely-there smile lines are; they're a testament to how little Mingyu lets his mouth rest.

“Even when he’s unconscious, he still looks like he’s smiling.”

Wonwoo nearly jumps his head into the ceiling at the suddenness of the voice. It almost irritates him how short a time he had to look at Mingyu asleep, except it irritates him even more now just how creepy the thought even is.

“Guess it’s built into his system,” Minghao continues as he settles onto the couch. His movements are fluid and intentional like a cat’s.

Wonwoo fiddles with the blanket tangled on his and Mingyu’s bodies. “Just get it over with, whatever it is that you want to interrogate me about.”

“Who says I want to interrogate you?”

“I’m dead inside, not dense.”

Wonwoo thinks Minghao smirks, but it’s really just a soft, weirdly careful smile directed at Mingyu.

“Everything about that statement is debatable,” Minghao says, looking back at Wonwoo with a stonier expression. “You and I don’t talk much.”

“We aren’t exactly surrounded by an abundance of privacy,” says Wonwoo, stretching the blanket on Mingyu’s legs. His words are emphasized by the shouts and rap covers from the kitchen.

“I mean we don’t talk much in general. But I think that’s changed, at least when we’re around the right people.”

“Jeonghan threatens me with physical assault if I don’t talk to him for more than three days. Does that count?”

Minghao shoots daggers from his eyes, and rightly so. He probably just wants a decent, heartfelt conversation with someone who won’t blow his ear off five minutes in and Wonwoo is being a sardonic asshat. Wonwoo tries to look apologetic.

“Most people in our high school have been friends since middle school,” Minghao says. “I didn’t get that as a transfer student. It was lonely at first. I hated the way people talked about my accent, or saw me for the flag on my back. But Mingyu never did that, not since the first day of school when he approached me and shook my hand like we’d known each other for years. He takes care of me like he’s older, but he treats me like a close friend. He can be too much sometimes, sure, but he’s seen the best and the worst of me, and I can never thank him enough.”

“Okay,” Wonwoo says, slowly, with eyebrows knit. That got personal _real_ quick. “And?”

“Mingyu is a great person—amazing, even. And I know you know that already. But a strong body doesn’t make up for a weak heart,” Minghao says, as if that provides any explanation for what was said earlier. “His openness is to a fault. I care about him a lot, and I don’t like seeing him hurt.”

“Why does everyone I know speak in riddles,” Wonwoo mutters, fingers twiddling with the tag on the blanket. He’s definitely taken Jihoon’s straightforwardness for granted. “Is this about the time I punched him?”

“Partly, but only because I’m the type to hold grudges.”

“You and me both, brother. Not even impending death can stop me.”

Minghao rolls his eyes. “I’m not talking about that day, you punk,” he says, earning a kick from Wonwoo at the informality. “You know, when Mingyu first pointed you out to me, I initially pegged you as someone who closes himself off to others and despises the world.”

“Don’t worry, I relapse now and then.”

“You’re actually quite friendly and fun under the emo front. I was exactly the same when I first got here, but Mingyu just—he has this effect on people.”

“Like he uproots your miseries and makes you want to be a better human being?” Wonwoo suggests, watching Minghao nod in understanding. He pulls the blanket off his feet. “Yeah, I get that. I talked about adopting from the animal shelter and my brother suddenly thinks _I’m_ adopted.”

“Soonyoung made the school nurse check me for head injuries when I complimented his choreography once.”

Wonwoo and Minghao share a quiet laugh before the latter stands up. There’s a flash of vulnerability in Minghao’s contemplative look when he regards Wonwoo, then Mingyu, then Wonwoo again.

“Hurting can make caring hard,” Minghao says very seriously, “even when you think the hurt is gone. But I’ve learned that caring about others isn’t the hard part. It’s finding the people who really and truly care about you, and letting yourself feel the same way.”

“Any more hints, Riddle Master?” Wonwoo asks.

“Just put the blanket on him already,” Minghao says, exasperated. “I know you’ve been wanting to.”

And Wonwoo complies, albeit a bit red-faced.

One after another, everyone takes turns using Mingyu’s bathroom to wash up before bed. Mingyu is eventually woken up by Seokmin to brush their teeth together as the others else settle in for the night. But just as Wonwoo is about to embrace the infinite abyss of deep sleep, he sees Mingyu motioning him over to the mattress finally under its rightful owner’s reign.

There definitely isn’t enough room for two large-ish people like Wonwoo and Mingyu to fit without some serious overlap, and Wonwoo considers this. He considers the anticipation in Mingyu’s burning stare, the notion that Mingyu cares enough about him to offer sharing the most luxurious sleeping option in the living room, even when the consequences include uncomfortable tangling of bony limbs and dealing with the Lucifer Wonwoo personifies in the morning.

Wonwoo considers the notion that Mingyu doesn’t care about anything except sleeping side-by-side with someone he’s grown to care about—someone who thinks he might feel the same.

 

 

 

“Meet up after school tomorrow? Why?”

“Why not? You said that you have a laughably free schedule.”

Wonwoo doesn’t like dredging up dialogue from the past to make a point, and he especially doesn’t like it when other people do it, but Mingyu’s just doing it selectively now. Having an accommodating schedule doesn’t equal a free pass to Wonwoo’s free time, but he supposes he’s too far gone at this point to say no.

“Tomorrow is the last day of school before winter break,” reasons Wonwoo over the phone, battle sequence on his DS now paused. “I’d’ve thought you had something planned with your buddies already, or some obligatory movie outing with family. That’s what most students do.”

“Is that what you’re doing?”

“…no.”

“So let’s meet up,” Mingyu insists, probably with another one of his unreasonably excited grins. “We can walk together to wherever.”

Wonwoo hisses at something the Joshua-voice in his head tells him. “Shit, sorry, I just remembered that I have a meeting tomorrow with my counselor about my senior essay topic. I postponed the meeting for too long already, and he’ll kill me if I push it to next semester.”

“I can wait for you.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I want to.”

“Your to-do list must be a nightmare,” Wonwoo says sourly. The comment draws a static-muddled laugh from the other end. “As your elder, I have every right to reprimand you for being disobedient and disrespectful.”

“I assumed we were already past that age hierarchy thing.”

Something fizzles weirdly in Wonwoo’s stomach. The feeling somehow reaches his ears, and Wonwoo makes a note to avoid his bathroom and the mirrors in it.

“I won’t do anything you don’t want me to do,” Mingyu says.

“And I can’t stop you from doing anything you want to do,” Wonwoo submits with a sigh. “I’m still strongly opposed to making you wait an indefinite amount of time after school on the last day of the semester.”

“I know you are. Good night.”

The line clicks off. Mingyu sounded so unnervingly determined over the phone, like there’s more to this meet-up than simply meeting up and Wonwoo definitely isn’t ready for that. But whether or not he’s ready doesn’t matter because Mingyu has this uncanny ability of pushing Wonwoo into corners he doesn’t want to be in—and yet the victim of all this doesn’t seem very resistant to the manhandling.

After his meeting, Wonwoo tries to act irritated when he sees Mingyu outside the counseling office, disturbing the lounge’s emptiness with his stupidly approachable aura and his even stupider excitement. That better be because it’s basically winter break already and not because he’s dragged Wonwoo into more unnecessary shenanigans.

“Shenanigans?” says Mingyu, looking up at Wonwoo fake-glaring at him. “You really do sound like a dad.”

“Get out,” says Wonwoo, but he’s smiling now.

“Only if you’re going with me.”

“What, do you think I’m staying here longer than I have to? I’ve been here so often, I’m hearing voices already.”

“What do the ghosts of barely-scraped-by high school graduates tell you?”

“Stupid shit about how much college changes a person for the better and budget-friendly ways to get turnt on a Tuesday morning. Let’s go.” Wonwoo adjusts the shoulder strap of his bag before heading for the door. He can feel Mingyu close behind him, that annoying, persistent sack of sunshine and sugar.

“We can head to the Starbucks a couple blocks away,” Mingyu suggests, and Wonwoo hums in agreement.

He doesn’t say much, or anything at all, really, on the way to the neighborhood study dungeon because Mingyu talks enough for the both of them. Wonwoo’s thoughts wander elsewhere from Mingyu’s words, though the buzz of one-sided chatter is comforting enough to make Wonwoo feel content the entire walk.

An order for an Americano and bagel is placed for Wonwoo, then a hot chocolate for Mingyu because he is a child in a teenager’s body and doesn’t know how caffeine works. After some bickering about Mingyu’s juvenile drink choice and some stink-eye from the others in line, the two of them leave for the emptier side of the coffee shop.

“Here,” Wonwoo says as he removes the too-familiar blazer from his bag and hands it to Mingyu, who stares at the garment like he’d just been reunited with a long-lost first cousin twice removed. “I could never seem to find a good time to return this. But better late than never, right?”

Mingyu nods hesitantly before the blazer is put away. “Thank you. Sorry for the trouble.”

“More like thank _you_ for letting me borrow it,” Wonwoo says gratefully. “I lack sufficient muscle to keep my core warm, so any extra layer is greatly appreciated.”

“You sure you don’t want to borrow it longer?”

“I’d take a winter coat over the school jacket any day. Sorry, bud. Don’t let the principal know.”

Mingyu mimes a closing zipper across his mouth. “Random question, but what do you want to be when you grow up?” he asks.

It takes a moment for Wonwoo to stop feeling so attacked all of a sudden. “Why? Looking into being broke or homeless?” Wonwoo asks with more sharpness than intended. After escaping the counseling office, he’s become rather sensitive to questions about the future.

Mingyu doesn’t seem fazed, though sounds a bit apologetic when he says, “Just curious. It’s weird that I know the names of your past goldfish but not your aspirations in life.”

“I’d ask you to prove yourself, but just thinking about Mimi, Megatron, and Scales McGee makes me emotional already. And on the note of names—”

Theirs are called in the distance, and Wonwoo gets up to grab the orders from the robotic part-timer manning the flavor pumps. He returns to Mingyu with a scowl at how skimpy the employees were with the cream cheese, but is far too lazy to get up again and complain in a civil manner.

“If you must know, which you don’t, I’m just being nice,” says Wonwoo after a sip, very satisfied at the caffeine replenishing his body’s low supply, “I’m thinking of being a writer or journalist. The most lucrative of professions, clearly.”

“I can imagine that,” Mingyu says with an understanding nod. “Not about that engineering life, though? You tutor Hansol and Minghao well enough in Math and Physics to bump them up a letter grade.”

“And I still don’t get paid. Like I said, broke and homeless, no matter how the dice rolls. Speaking of, you know I’m still haunted by the first time I played Monopoly? I wake up to Joshua swearing sometimes.” Mingyu’s open laughter keeps at bay the darkness of that terrible, unrelated memory creeping up on Wonwoo. “Anyway, engineering is too high-pressure. My laziness would kill me, and I much prefer living in mutual understanding with my inability to exert effort.”

“I respectfully disagree.”

“And I disrespectfully disagree with your disagreement. What about you? What are your premature professional hopes and dreams?” asks Wonwoo with bagel in hand. “And I’m totally not asking because I want to stop talking and eat. I’m genuinely interested.”

“Business seems like the most obvious choice,” Mingyu says, shrugging, “with my dad’s side being full of businessmen. M’mom says I have good charm for making deals.”

“Color me surprised,” says Wonwoo, “which means that I’d be colorless because I’m actually not surprised. For clarification. If you couldn’t tell.”

“Thanks, I needed that,” says Mingyu with an unacceptable degree of sass. “Your only facial expressions are ‘disconnected from reality’ or ‘moderately amused,’ so it was hard to tell.”

“Why did you want to talk today anyway?” Wonwoo says, more-than-moderately amused. “I could be sleeping, or gaming, or upholding my reputation as gatekeeper of the underworld—or sleeping.”

“My apologies, Sleeping Beauty.” Wonwoo doesn’t even get the chance to choke on his straw when Mingyu continues, with a strange shift into soft nostalgia, “Do you remember the first time we met?”

“My fish, Monopoly, and now The Punch. Memory lane isn’t that fun, you know—”

“That wasn’t the first time we met.”

Wonwoo freezes, as if the editor of the sitcom that is Wonwoo’s life just paused the scene and expects the cutely pathetic main character to provide awkward commentary to the monumental reveal. Except Wonwoo was rudely skipped over when scripts were handed out because he has nothing intelligent to contribute.

“What.”

“It’s not surprising you don’t remember,” Mingyu says, face the same pleasant expression he always wears, except it has no place when he’s alone with Wonwoo. “You didn’t get a good look at me at the time. Maybe this will jog your memory.”

From his bag, Mingyu pulls out a small, black umbrella with cautious, almost reverent handling. Which is weird because the thing looks so flimsy and cheap, something only bought in a pinch at convenience stores during rainstorms. Wonwoo becomes increasingly confused the longer he stares at it.

“A one for one,” Mingyu explains, even though Wonwoo still doesn’t understand, “for the jacket you’ve returned to me.”

It takes a while and a few more doses of coffee for the gears to finally click in Wonwoo’s head. “As in,” he says, “this is mine?”

“It is.”

“And I gave this to you before my fist helloed to your face.”

“More like a ‘screw you’ than a hello, but yes otherwise.”

“Huh. Color me surprised. For real this time.”

“You could definitely use some color,” Mingyu teases, except without the same cheerful lilt his teases usually have. “So you don’t remember?”

“Not immediately, no,” Wonwoo says, slowly drawing out the words. “But give me a few days and I’m sure it’ll come to me.”

Wonwoo wants to reach out and smooth away the frown on Mingyu’s face. It doesn’t belong there, not in place of big smiles and eye crinkles that light up everything in a hundred-meter radius. There’s no way this could be worse than punching someone in the face, but, then again, making a mistake is one thing. Forgetting something important to an important person is another.

“I’m sorry,” Wonwoo says lamely.

“It’s okay,” Mingyu flat-out lies. “Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and all that. See you next year?”

It’s less of a question than a statement of uncertainty, and it only reminds Wonwoo of that night in the school bathroom. He's never had a javelin impaled in his chest before, but he thinks this is what it must feel like.

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

December Celebration this year is extra special because it’s the last with the seniors. Cheap soju and beer get bumped to mid-tier wine and champagne a la Junhui because he’s the hero no one knew they needed and also don’t deserve.

After exchanging presents and burying Seungcheol in bootleg K-Pop socks for his ED school acceptance, Jeonghan, Soonyoung, and Jihoon start up round one of “bubble pong,” the bougie cousin beer pong wishes it was but can't afford on the regular. Seungcheol’s capacity for parental supervision runs drier the more he drinks instead of pulling Jeonghan from at least five more Solo cups, but the atmosphere is still festive and merry as fuck, and that’s all anyone cares about.

But Wonwoo doesn’t— _can’t—_ pay much attention to the festivities or alcohol when all he can think about is the gaping hole in the deepest parts of his memory.

He’s on the floor of Junhui’s bedroom when Joshua slips in. “Penny for your thoughts?” Joshua asks, voice as gentle and easy as ever. There is a glass of white wine in each hand.

“By penny, do you mean alcohol, and by thoughts, do you mean baring my soul to you for potential blackmail purposes?” Wonwoo asks with a sigh. “Don’t mind if I do.”

“We miss you out there,” Joshua says, sitting beside him and handing him a glass.

“I’m sure Jihoon feels that way with Soonyoung as his partner,” Wonwoo says at the same time Jihoon yells something indistinct but vicious-sounding. “Unfortunately, Wonwoo Shot is officially retired. Stay tuned for my ghost-written autobiography as a struggling artist whose life isn’t actually that bad, but insincerely milking fame has become a normalized practice these days.”

“You definitely need a drink.”

“Tell me about it.”

Joshua claps a hand to Wonwoo’s shoulder and jostles him. The gesture is somewhat reassuring, which is definitely better than the pity party Wonwoo resigned to since the Starbucks rendezvous.

“I know I’m not Soonyoung or Jeonghan,” Joshua says with the tone of someone who’s done this before, “but maybe it’s better that I’m not. I can be objective. Or I could just listen, if you want. My mom tells me I’m a great listener.”

“Be careful, natural selection is making your species extinct,” Wonwoo jokes with an empty smile. He hesitates, swirls the wine in his glass, before deciding on, “Feelings are weird. And really fucking confusing.”

“Oh yeah,” Joshua concurs with a twisted expression. “Jun was so hungry he proposed to the pizza delivery guy earlier with a ring of straw wrappers.”

“Did you get it on camera?”

“Yup.”

“And order extra breadsticks?”

“You betcha.”

“Sweet,” Wonwoo drawls approvingly, but he shakes his head, remembering what he should be talking about. “Anyway, it’s not about _just_ feelings, but the _deeper_ stuff, the ones that—how do I put this?—sound extra loud in the quiet. That seem like they’ve been hibernating inside you forever but you don’t realize how serious they are until they finally wake up. Friendship,” or platonic soulmateship, as Soonyoung calls it, “used to be as deep as it got for me, but I don’t know anymore.”

“Did something in particular trigger this thought?”

“Well, it isn’t so much a particular thing, rather it’s a lot of little things that have turned into something big, maybe bigger than I can possibly handle. But such little things shouldn’t mean so much, right? Maybe I'm thinking about this is too much already.”

“Feelings are feelings, and feelings are important no matter how big or small,” Joshua tells him, taking a sip and exhaling. “You just have this habit of compartmentalizing information all the time, and that’s hard to do when things get too complex, or need more time and smaller boxes to digest.”

“With words like that, you could write a book,” Wonwoo says. “Or be a Korean-American Dr. Phil. I'm a fan already.”

“If anything,” Joshua presses on, “time will get you to where you need to be. It’s slow, but it’s foolproof.”

“Well, time has been a luxury lately for this poor student.” Wonwoo finishes the last of his drink with a sigh that’s neither satisfied nor miserable. “Hey, Joshua?”

“That’s my name, everyone wears it out.”

“Is there— do you regret anything from high school?”

Joshua studies him, stare suddenly very sober, and for a moment Wonwoo fears that his eyes are as telling as Joshua makes them seem.

“I regret not spending enough time with the people I love,” Joshua says like he’s moving an ocean away for college because _he is_ and Wonwoo wilts at the realization. “It’s only now that I see how short my time here was. I’m really going to miss you and everyone out there.”

“I’m not drunk enough to start crying,” Wonwoo says despite the tremble in his voice.

“That should be amended immediately,” Joshua says with a chuckle. He nods his head to the door. “Join us soon, okay? Us oldies don’t have much time left.”

“I’ll be out in a bit,” Wonwoo promises, finishing off his drink and handing the empty glass to Joshua. “Will it be this bad when I’m a senior?”

“Oh, it’ll be much worse,” Joshua says with an inoffensive wink. “Is Wonwoo Shot still retired? Seungcheol brought extra ibuprofen and cheesecake this time.”

“A comeback may be in consideration,” Wonwoo surrenders with an exaggerated swoon. Seungcheol always brings the best food. “Thanks for, um, listening. And talking. To me. There’s never enough time to talk about these things.”

Joshua is at the door, lips quirked, when he says, “Time is unforgiving, but you shouldn’t be. Especially not to yourself.”

Then Joshua closes the door behind him, leaving Wonwoo to digest that fortune cookie advice at a speed telling him he definitely needs another drink.

 

 

 

(It’s the middle of summer leading up to sophomore year when monsoon season hits like a nuclear bomb clusterfuck of thick, miserable rains.

Wonwoo has this habit of forgetting to protect himself from the elements because his brain still refuses to cooperate with his body even after puberty. His mother is usually the “your mistake, your fault”-type of hardcore lady, but this morning she pushed an umbrella into his hand like some foreboding force of motherly instincts. Or maybe she’s just pitying him for once. But not everyone has the privilege of having moms who cover their son’s asses.

The hagwon emptied quickly because of the weather, and Wonwoo, despite his desperation to waste time watching cat videos at home, had to return books he borrowed from the instructor. In staying behind, Wonwoo eventually stumbles upon a lone student (a freshman, probably, from all the fidgeting) pacing around at the entrance and arguing with…himself, under his breath, about being “stupid for hitting the snooze button too many times this morning, ugh, I’m an idiot.”

“I wouldn’t jump to conclusions, but you know yourself better than I do,” Wonwoo says conversationally. Both of them are surprised at the sound of Wonwoo’s voice, stark and low against the dull onslaught of rain. “No pick-up?”

“Um, well, my mom’s still at work and my dad’s abroad,” is the slow, hesitant response. It’s cute, how quiet and marginally less hopeless the words sound. “I forgot to bring an umbrella or raincoat.”

“I can see that,” or rather Wonwoo easily assumes such. He doesn’t even need a good look to tell that this guy’s the type to live in the fancy apartments far away from school, so a quick soak running home is out of the question.

Something about seeing the sheets of cold, uncaring rain pouring hell outside, as if all the oceans had been upended and dumped onto Seoul’s vulnerable streets, makes something bright and warm and sudden surge inside Wonwoo. After being a depressed potato for the worst and more-worst halves of freshman year, Wonwoo is resolute this time on making someone, even just one person, feel a little less miserable on such a miserable day.

In an act of recklessness and good faith, Wonwoo shoves his umbrella into the student’s hand—

“Wait, what about you?”

“Just take it! It’s cheap and I live a few blocks away!”

—before dashing into the rain.

He gets sick right after, of course, but he did something good today, and that’s all that matters.)

 

 

 

Wonwoo’s winter break is an attempt at productivity, and it works out for the most part. He finishes his review sheets for History, headlocks his brother as retribution for taking his yogurt, and manages to pet the neighborhood tabby without losing an arm. But when the vacation reaches its final night, Wonwoo doesn’t feel like he was productive at all.

Of course he had to remember. Of _course_ he had to remember as clearly as it happened just yesterday.

Wonwoo becomes restless, eyes straining themselves open when his body pleads for rest. His skin turns unbearably prickly and irritated where rashes do not appear. He feels like his body is trying to relearn itself, or find something that doesn’t belong inside him, or, if that thing does belong in Wonwoo, fail spectacularly in understanding what it is and why it’s even there.

It turned January a few days ago, and it will keep being January until February. Gravity still holds everyone to the ground, and Wonwoo still despises James Joyce and everything the man touches with a withering passion. But repeating realities doesn’t make the burning sensation in Wonwoo’s chest feel any less.

Less what? He can’t say. All he knows is that he just wants to feel it less less  _less_ because it makes words shrivel on his tongue and cotton candy consume his brain.

Thoughts come and go in colors, gut feelings too complex for description and a long, never-ending itch to do stupid things like sing in the rain or yell confessions from a cliff overlooking infinite waters. Maybe morning stars can exist in eyes, he muses ridiculously, or planets in the strength of fingertips, or ocean valleys in collarbones and in giant, gracious smiles.

Wonwoo has always been a words kind of guy, even if his words are often unsaid. But every sign he comes upon is red and alarmingly abstract and tells him that something is wrong with him, that there’s a fire in his body and the smoke is making him dizzy and confused and not himself. But the problem has never been about the fire; it's about the person who lit the fire in the first place.

Against better judgement, Wonwoo rolls out of bed and wades through the darkness in his room. He finds his phone buried under a mound of laundry without any recollection of how it got there.

After he sends a message, it takes a long, grueling moment for a response to appear.  

> **Wonu:  
>  ** Are you awake?
> 
> **Kwon_soon1010:**  
>  i am now u dick  
>  wat ants hav u got in ur brain dis time?
> 
> **Wonu:**  
>  Don’t lie, you were playing League.  
>  Anyway, I can’t sleep.  
>  I’ve been feeling sick the whole weekend.
> 
> **Kwon_soon1010:**  
>  wat???  
>  does auntie kno?  
>  r u drinkin lots of h20?  
>  are u poopin ok?
> 
> **Wonu:**  
>  As shitty as ever, but that’s normal I guess.  
>  I’m not actually sick.  
>  I just feel like it.  
>  I don’t know why.
> 
> **Kwon_soon1010:**  
>  i aint no doctor bro  
>  das scoup’s biznis if he ever gets into med school 
> 
> **Wonu:**  
>  As your best friend, my “biznis” is yours, and vice versa.  
>  Just listen to what I need to tell you.
> 
> **Kwon_soon1010:  
>  ** okok go 4 it
> 
> **Wonu:  
>  ** The me from last year is the same as me at the beginning of the year, right? I don’t know what happened to that guy, but he’s not me anymore. All I cared about was college. But I haven’t touched entrance exam prep books in weeks and I’m way past due for my next existential crisis.
> 
> I can’t think clearly, I feel weird all the time like my insides want to be on the outside, and I do things I don’t normally do or I have the urge to do them.
> 
> I don’t know what’s happening or what happened, but I don’t like it. Something’s wrong with me.
> 
> **Kwon_soon1010:**  
>  …  
>  ……  
>  …………
> 
> omg r u srs do u rly not get it
> 
> **Wonu:**  
>  Of course I’m serious!  
>  Would I be messaging you otherwise?  
>  What am I not getting??
> 
> **Kwon_soon1010:**  
>  d00d, get this  
>  nothings wrong w u  
>  its just that  
>  maybe  
>  u like mingyu

There they are. The words Wonwoo has been avoiding for an absurdly long time—longer than he thought he could manage.

He inspects each letter of Soonyoung’s message until they start forming words again. His thumbs are trembling over his keypad, mind desperate to type something out but body refusing to comply. 

> **Kwon_soon1010:**  
>  soz but imma sleep now bro..  
>  we can talk during lunch/after dance tmrw if u want
> 
> **Wonu:  
>  ** Yeah sure.  
>  Thanks.

Of course the thought of being attracted to Mingyu has crossed Wonwoo’s mind. It’s a violation of human nature to not feel like that around Mingyu at some point. But this isn’t some lowbrow crush cultivated from shy glances across the cafeteria or dumb magazine quizzes dictating relationship compatibility.

Wonwoo groans into his pillow. Okay, so their friendship isn’t the most conventional. There’s definitely more eye contact involved, and whispering in close proximities, and fluttery feelings in Wonwoo’s chest with other warm things he doesn’t want to think about because, if he does, the reality of his emotions will become more real.

Not that he even has the right words to mold his thoughts into anything humanly recognizable. Soonyoung wrote it so simply, but Wonwoo knows that it’s more than that. Nothing worth its weight in sleepless nights is ever that simple.

 

 

 

“Hey, Wonwoo, you okay?”

“Posh. Peachy. Perfect. Pterodactyl.”

Instead of giving Wonwoo the look of a dead man, Jihoon simply responds with, “You look you’re arguing with yourself in your head.”

Jihoon may be severe, but he isn’t incapable of showing empathy, so the question itself isn’t surprising. But there’s genuine worry on Jihoon’s face with the want to be helpful somehow, and it’s a startling change from the sharp distance usually found there. Wonwoo swallows the lump in his throat.

“He’s got boy problems,” Soonyoung interrupts before Wonwoo has a chance to explain, which he wasn’t going to, admittedly. But Wonwoo still tries his hardest to stab the devil advocate’s chest with a glare. “Hey,” Soonyoung says to Wonwoo, hands up defensively, “Jihoon already knows.”

Wonwoo stills. “He does?”

“He does.”

“You do?”

“I do.” Jihoon shrugs. “It was obvious since, like, the varsity thing.”

“The heck,” Wonwoo says tartly.

“It was obvious since that first group date at The Ice Cream Shop,” Junhui says as he sits beside Soonyoung at their library table.

“The _heck,”_ Wonwoo repeats, more tart.

“You don’t sprint for just anyone,” explains Junhui like it’s the simplest thing in the world, and it’s frightening.

“So what am I supposed to do?” Wonwoo asks, sinking further into his chair in the hope it will swallow him up and kidnap him from this plane of reality. “I left all my guts back in middle school when Math Olympiads were still cool—”

“They never were,” Jihoon butts in.

“—and all that’s left is a dusty, bottomless well of unrealized desires trapped in an infinite plummet towards an abyss of nothingness.”

“You are why I question my existence sometimes. It’s not that fun,” mutters Soonyoung, somehow not getting tackled for stealing some of Jihoon’s chocolate milk. “How about confessing to him?”

“Internalize my desires into tiny receptacles of disappointment and hope they disappear before my next exam, you say?” Wonwoo translates with a nod. “Great idea.”

Jihoon pinches the skin between his eyes with great restraint. “Good lord. It’s a wonder how you haven’t exploded yet.”

“You don’t know that I haven’t,” Wonwoo points out with finger guns. Jihoon throws up his arms in surrender.

“My Wonwoo senses have never failed me,” Soonyoung says, arms crossed in confidence. “And right now, they’re telling me that you need to get rid of the stick rammed up your butthole and embrace the sweet pain of being a human being with a _heart_ and _feelings_ , you cold-blooded pubic hair.”

Wonwoo pushes Soonyoung who, despite his years of dancing and carefully-honed body control, falls to ground where he belongs. They’re on the brink of entering their first genuine wrestling match since the Hot Pocket incident from summer camp until Junhui physically steps in between them.

“I agree with Soonyoung,” he says with a firmness Wonwoo doesn’t expect. “I don’t see any point in holding it in. You like him well enough.”

“But—”

“I second that,” interjects Jihoon, causing the other three to stare at him. He rolls his eyes so hard even Wonwoo feels his head aching. “Don’t look so fucking surprised. I care about Wonwoo, too.”

“If you cared about me,” says Wonwoo, “you’d shoot down every chance I have at a relationship this early in my hopefully eighty-plus-year lifespan because heartbreak is only inevitable in pursuing what is only temporary. That’s what you did every other time I liked someone.”

“But this time is different,” Jihoon says, closing his laptop screen and finally looking at Wonwoo. There is no encouraging smile on Jihoon’s face, but there is a tenderness to his expression, weirdly reminiscent of Jeonghan’s that night after the basketball game. “There’s something genuine and reciprocated between you and Mingyu. I don’t know what it is, and it’s honestly disgusting being around you guys, but even I can see that he makes you a better person.”

“What he said,” Soonyoung and Junhui quip simultaneously. They high-five each other and Wonwoo feels compelled to high-five their stupid faces.

“Okay,” says Wonwoo, standing up.

“Okay?” echoes everyone else.

“Of course not!” Wonwoo exclaims, dramatically dropping back into his seat in his burgeoning state of nausea. His head is pounding. All he wants to do is bury himself in his bed and sleep until faces and voices disappear from recognition. “Who do you think I am? I’m a lumpy pimple in the face of humanity who isn’t operational before noon and built a shrine for Sailor Moon when he was ten. There’s no way someone like Mingyu could like me back.”

“Are—”

“—you—”

“—fucking serious,” says Soonyoung, Junhui, and Jihoon in that order.

“There were four words in that,” mumbles Wonwoo without enthusiasm, eyes to his fingers. “Should’ve saved me one so we’d be a quartet.”

Soonyoung grabs Wonwoo’s shoulders with a force so alarming it jars Wonwoo into looking at him. If Jihoon seems out of character today, Soonyoung is from a completely different world with how scarily humorless his expression is.

“Listen to me, egghead,” Soonyoung says very, very seriously. “You’re making it really hard for me to be the smarter one between us with how many brain cells I’ve shed watching you and Mingyu melt every time you guys so much as breathe in each other’s directions. I don’t know how much more clearly I have to spell it out for you, but seeing as you’re so dense a brick would be jealous, here it is in words even unborn children can understand: Mingyu has had a crush on you since _forever_ ago, dumbass, and everyone knows it except you.”

There’s an awkward gap in sound, magnified by the pin-drop silence in the library, before Wonwoo gathers the strength to utter a dumbfounded, “Huh. Legit?”

“Legit,” Junhui answers for Soonyoung, who stalks to the nonfiction section to prevent himself from spilling over in swear words. “It’s been getting pretty ridiculous with how obvious it is, at least to us.”

“We were hoping you would figure it out on your own, but I’m just glad we don’t have to deal with your oblivious shit anymore,” says Jihoon, who turns and gives Wonwoo The LookTM. “Right?”

Wonwoo nods in reflex.

“Good,” Jihoon says before hitching his bag onto his shoulders. “Don’t fuck it up, okay?”

“Too late,” Wonwoo says with a wary salute, “but I’ll do my best to un-fuck it up.”

 

 

 

Considering Mingyu’s notoriety (and worship) in school, Wonwoo is rightfully surprised at how hard it is to find the guy. But after a few days, two crazy Advanced Econ girls, and one traumatized Chan (don’t ask) later, Wonwoo finally corners Mingyu at the tennis courts some time after school.

Despite the ugly sweating and the splotchy red patches of skin the tennis courts usually entail, Mingyu’s always had this knack for looking unearthly despite the humanity around him.

Wonwoo finds Mingyu sitting at the top rightmost corner of the bleachers with his bag crumpled at his feet, long body stretched over two to three levels, and head tilted to the sky. There’s a white edge to him, as if outlined in gilding made of sunlight, and it reminds Wonwoo of the day he thought they first met.

Right now, though, Mingyu isn’t smiling and his eyes aren’t crinkled in perpetual excitement. Nothing about him is energetic, eager to please, or strong. The Mingyu there is nothing like the Mingyu everyone else expects, and seeing him this open and unfiltered without a need to impress anyone scares Wonwoo because it’s all so incredibly, unreasonably beautiful.

As Wonwoo approaches, Mingyu spots him and quickly scrambles into a more proper sitting position, mouth slightly ajar as if the sight of Wonwoo sliced his mouth open.

They look at each other for a long time, saying nothing but searching each other’s faces, until Mingyu says, “Hi.”

“Hi yourself.”

“Why are you here?”

“Why do you think I’m here? To play tennis?” Wonwoo takes a seat next to Mingyu. “If you say yes, I will pluck your armpits until they’re spotless. Have you eaten yet?”

Mingyu gulps. In the corner of his eye, Wonwoo sees him nudge his bag closed with his shoe, but Mingyu makes it that much easier to spot the tightly packed lunch boxes he had started, and clearly hasn’t stopped, making for them both out of habit.

“Skipped, huh. That makes two of us,” Wonwoo comments. Mingyu doesn’t put up a fight when Wonwoo reaches over him, but Mingyu’s always sucked at denying Wonwoo what he wants. “Before you ask, my winter break was meh. I’m guessing yours was, too. Objections?”

“No,” Mingyu sighs, sinking into himself a little more. “No objections.” He hardly has any with Wonwoo. He even lets Wonwoo bump their knees to an uneven rhythm regardless of how stiff it makes him.

“Didn’t think so.” The chopsticks Wonwoo uses to offer food don’t miraculously catch fire despite how intensely Mingyu is staring at them, but he takes the food with his mouth anyway.

“Why are you here?” Mingyu repeats, slightly muffled. “Talking isn’t really—”

“That message is loud and clear, if winter break was any indication,” Wonwoo says, holding out more food.

“I’m sorry,” Mingyu apologizes, eating the food anyway. “There was a lot on my mind.”

“Me too. The apology and the thinking thing,” Wonwoo says. There’s an escalating ringing in his ears, like some kind of mental alarm for whatever’s been set off, so he pushes some food into his own mouth to calm himself down and— _ah_ , this is what nostalgia tastes like. “You know, I started remembering sometime after New Year’s.”

The sound of Mingyu’s chewing stops abruptly.

“It was summertime a couple years ago, right?” Wonwoo continues, staring at the clear blue and white sky above them. “Raining hard, summer classes were over for the day. It was the first and last time my mom ever trusted me with an umbrella. She was surprised to see it again.”

Wonwoo pauses, feeling eyes burning holes into his neck. “Oh,” is all Mingyu says.

“She won’t let me near it anymore,” Wonwoo huffs with a shrug. “Sadly, I won’t be lending it to strangers and running into the rain any time soon. Then again, we aren’t exactly strangers anymore, are we?”

“We aren’t,” Mingyu echoes.

“Do you think it would be easier if we were?”

“I don’t think so. But it doesn’t really matter because we aren’t. Strangers, that is.”

“Would you want to be?”

“‘Course not.”

“Then what are we?” Wonwoo asks so quickly he even surprises himself.

Mingyu bites his lip, real answer stuck under his tongue because there’s that instinct of his to satisfy others before himself again, to hide whatever it is he really wants to say and it annoys Wonwoo to no end. “Fr—”

“Say ‘friends,’” interrupts Wonwoo with a quiet, almost nervous sharpness to his voice, “and the armpit plucking thing still stands.”

“What do you suggest I say, then?” Mingyu says exasperatedly. He looks red from ears to neck to even his toes, probably, and his hair is thoroughly carded through in frustration than adjustment. “What do you want me to tell you? That I like you? That I want us to be more than friends? Because that’s what I’ve wanted to say for the longest time, but when the only chance I thought I could do it properly came, I bailed because the person I liked—and _still_ like—couldn’t even remember the moment I met him. I just— I didn’t—” Mingyu exhales slowly, but shaky, and closes his eyes tight. “I’m sorry.”

When Mingyu consigns to opening his eyes again, Wonwoo somehow musters up the courage to look straight into them. They both flinch at the familiarity.

Mingyu isn’t a metaphor—people generally aren’t—but _god_ Wonwoo just can’t stop comparing him to the sun. Being under Mingyu’s stare makes Wonwoo’s skin break out into forest fires, burning him until there is nothing left but ash and dust in the palm of Mingyu’s control. Wax wings melt in the face of the sun, but Wonwoo would be more than glad to taste saltwater if it meant being near Mingyu.

Wonwoo sets his chopsticks down to brush through Mingyu’s messy locks. The taut height of Mingyu’s shoulders relaxes back to normal and the wild panic in his eyes is lucid and stubborn but it all seems to soften at the touch.

“I’m sorry,” Mingyu repeats.

“I’m a terrible influence. Now _you’re_ apologizing too much. Not so fun throwback, huh?” Wonwoo says as he brings his hand down from Mingyu’s hair to his cheek.

“I don’t mind it,” mutters Mingyu, alternating between digging a hole in the ground with his gaze and glancing at Wonwoo to check that he’s still there. Wonwoo can feel him shaking against his hand. “That day by the school gates turned into an excuse to see you almost every day.”

“Why didn’t you just talk to me before?”

“I’m shy. Around you.”

Wonwoo outright laughs at the whine in Mingyu’s words; extroverted and charming Mingyu being too shy to speak to Wonwoo is a humbling thought. “You know,” says Wonwoo, “I was hoping for something like buddy cops in space, but I’m game for ‘more than friends.’”

Mingyu’s eyes latch onto Wonwoo’s again with a speed that would challenge that of light. “You would?”

“Obligatory survey: Do you like me? Check yes or yes.”

“Is there a third option of ‘heck yes’?” Mingyu asks, smile suddenly appearing like an instantaneous sunrise at the implications of Wonwoo’s words. He hesitantly lays his hand over the one Wonwoo placed at his cheek, and Wonwoo doesn’t resist, only presses his thumb to Mingyu’s skin. “I do like you. So badly, I can’t stand it anymore.”

“You’re such a cheeseball,” murmurs Wonwoo, bringing his other hand to Mingyu’s other cheek.

Mingyu smiles. “Yours, hopefully?”

Wonwoo pushes his face away. “Cheese. Ball.”

Wonwoo normally hates this kind of exchange, especially in the sound of his own voice, but his face is hurting with how much he’s smiling and Mingyu _likes_ him for _real_ and every bubble Wonwoo’s kept safe from the needles of reality are popping like fireworks in every vein of his body. Something is exploding somewhere and Wonwoo has an inkling that that’s why he started feeling pop rocks on his tongue whenever Mingyu would so much as call his name.

And yet—

“It shouldn’t be this easy,” Wonwoo says, dropping his hands to his lap and looking away. His chest is fighting between inflating and collapsing in on itself.

Mingyu’s face twists in concern. “What? What’s not easy?”

“Liking you back? Being liked by you? Suddenly being so _high school?_ This kind of stuff doesn’t happen in real life.”

“You like me back,” Mingyu says so breathlessly that Wonwoo feels his ribs push out in his lungs’ yearning to fill Mingyu up with air. “You like me back.”

Wonwoo rolls his eyes, but his quirked lips don’t diminish. “It must be nice, having selective hearing.”

“You know, calling all of this ‘easy’ is the understatement of the century,” Mingyu says with the tone of someone who really didn’t have an easy time. “But, in a lot of ways, this—being us—is pretty easy.”

Mingyu says it with so much conviction that Wonwoo almost believes him. He asks, “Why?”

“Because it felt so…right, I guess,” Mingyu’s eyes crinkle with his blush. “Do you think so?”

Wonwoo can only manage a nod with how stuffy his throat has become.

“Can you say it again? That you like me?” Mingyu whispers the request so earnestly with those stupid puppy eyes of his. “I need to convince myself I’m not dreaming.”

Wonwoo flushes at the mix of excited anticipation and nervousness in Mingyu’s face. Mingyu looks so irrevocably taken by what’s in front of him, and Wonwoo needs a moment to realize that it’s himself—that he’s the one who rudely stole Mingyu’s heart and never gave it back.

Maybe Mingyu is right. Maybe it can be this easy.

“I like you,” Wonwoo says.

“Again.”

“I like you.”

“Again!”

“I’m not a fucking record player,” Wonwoo says, albeit affectionately. He lets Mingyu slot their fingers together like a properly saccharine couple, grinning all the while. “This all seems anticlimactic. I was expecting more drama. Or crying. Or plot twists about terminal illnesses— mention the word ‘lovesick’ and your armpits _and_ hairy-ass legs are goners. I know where my mom keeps the wax.”

“I won’t mention it, but I’ll think it,” says Mingyu, hands still glued to Wonwoo’s with a childishly tight grip, as if anything looser will let Wonwoo run away. “There was a monologue, at least?”

“I do like monologues,” agrees Wonwoo.

“And me,” Mingyu preens. “You like _me_.” He bumps their foreheads together with a self-satisfied laugh, and Wonwoo would be lying if he said he didn’t think about kissing Mingyu silly right there and then.

 

 

 

“And you didn’t?” asks Jeonghan, somewhat soberly despite a night of karaoke and disgustingly fruity soju. “Lame.”

“Say that again after summer break,” says Wonwoo before thinking, and suddenly he’s paying for another round of drinks at Jeonghan’s spritely, overtly suggestive request.

 

 

 

Graduation prep rolls around faster than anyone expected. Maybe because it’s not a distant future they’d just laugh anymore. Now, it’s a wistful inevitability.

Jihoon is the first to cry when the seniors show off the gowns they’d bought or borrowed or outright pilfered, and no one stands a chance when the graduation caps are on. It takes a while to pry Mingyu off Seungcheol and Jeonghan off Chan, who is apparently Jeonghan’s informally-adopted child. But somehow Joshua manages to separate them all like the god on Earth he is—until he’s at the bottom of a love pile refusing to surrender him to America.

As the school year reaches its end, Soonyoung disappears from everyone’s radar to prepare for the arts festival, while Junhui complains about Wonwoo’s perpetual disinterest in watching his badminton matches. Junhui argues that Wonwoo saw all of Mingyu’s matches last sports season, but Wonwoo argues back that Junhui isn’t Mingyu.

The time Wonwoo spends with Mingyu doesn’t change significantly, except now Mingyu is free from the chains of organized athletics. The kid religiously protested Wonwoo’s severe delay of their honeymoon phase until after finals, but junior year exams are too important for Wonwoo to flub because of Mingyu’s overeager facilitation of their relationship. If Wonwoo’s going to exercise something at all, it’s going to be self-control.

Meaning, after all, isn’t solely bred from physicality. It’s bred from late-night study sessions at the 24-hour McDonalds and the sleepovers that involve less sleeping and more cramming. It’s in the cold footsies under dining room tables when Wonwoo recites key dates in World War II, and in the endless supply of clothes Mingyu has whenever Wonwoo stays over.

And it’s especially in Mingyu’s loud blathering after a hard math exam, and in the even more surprising kiss Wonwoo presses on his forehead to shut him up.

“You’ve worked hard,” Wonwoo says after pulling away. “I’m proud of you. So, so, so proud.” They’re both sitting on the middle school field, empty of demon children with the afternoon growing so late. Both of them are as tickled pink as the sunset marking the end of exam season.

“I could understand one or two so’s, but three? You’re reaching parent territory here.” Mingyu is trembling with loosely-held restraint, and it makes Wonwoo laugh in anticipation. But Mingyu just scrunches his face and says, “Don’t tell me you have an Oedipus complex. I never would’ve pegged you as _that_ kind of kinky—”

Wonwoo pushes the jerkass away from him. “Fuck off, you dandelion.”

“Seungkwan was right, you totally are into pet names!”

“As if!”

“Sweetie, darling, _baby_ —”

Wonwoo scowls, flushing scarlet as he uses his feet to push Mingyu back down. “Have fun making out with unnecessarily expensive astroturf instead.”

“‘Instead’? Instead of you? That means you were thinking of kissing me,” Mingyu says brightly despite the plastic gravel on his cheeks, which Wonwoo brushes away because Mingyu’s just so darn cute. “You’ve imagined us kissing. You were planning on kissing me. You’ve already kissed me and you were going to do it again, but on my mouth. Right? I’m definitely right.”

Mingyu is smiling so hard that Wonwoo actually worries his face will freeze like that, so he rubs his thumbs into the corners of Mingyu’s mouth to try and tone it down. But Mingyu just ends up yelping in pain and pushing Wonwoo over—and suddenly they’re tumbling around in what would have their mothers yelling at them for grass stains if not for the artificial terrain made of tuition money.

Of course, someone ends up above someone else at some point, breaths close and warm and _closer_. One of them leans in with the other spouting mild complaints left and right. But, in a moment that feels like the most movie-cliché of brief forevers, lips are touching, swift and soft, and there’s an awkward teeth clack somewhere that’s quickly erased by another eager, slower kiss.

The in-betweens are colored with laughter and smile-shaped touches, a stupid grin pressed against another in barely-contained happiness. It’s a paradox, Wonwoo concludes, for no other feeling could make him utterly dizzy yet also acutely awake, or filled to the brim with warmth yet also empty of nothing but the person in his arms.

The savor of it all is so sweet and ethereal, like every moment spent waiting, wanting, and wasting away over “what could be”, somehow turned into “what now is”, has been concentrated into something this dangerously intimate. If Wonwoo thought he was in the palm of Mingyu’s hand before, surely Mingyu is in his at this very moment.

“Stop making me fall so hard for you,” Mingyu whispers into Wonwoo’s shoulder. He’s doing a terrible job of hiding his blush when his ears are the color of a sunburn. “I don’t ever want to let go.”

At the giddy smile Mingyu places onto Wonwoo’s collarbone, Wonwoo lets out the most ridiculous, carefree laugh that’s ever left his mouth. “Then don’t.”

 

 

 

 

“Have you told Mingyu which universities you’re applying to?”

Wonwoo jerks at the question, sweaty, nerves-taut fingers paused over his keyboard. “Really? _Now?_ When we’re in the middle of a game?”

“When else do I get to spend time with you?” argues Soonyoung, voice stained with static in Wonwoo’s headphones. “You’re either studying to your deathbed or frolicking with Tall, Dark, and Handsome. Us little people matter too, you know.”

“I’ll add it to my secretary’s memo.”

“Can you also tell your secretary that you suck at avoiding questions?”

The screen of Wonwoo’s computer tells him their opponent flaked so they’re pending for another 2v2 match. If he bails now, Jihoon and Jeonghan will commit genocide if they find him and Soonyoung desecrating the team’s reputation, especially since those guys supposed to log on soon. But Wonwoo does feel guilty for not making time for Soonyoung when he’s at his busiest, which Soonyoung always does for him.

“No, I haven’t told him,” Wonwoo surrenders, eyeing the START button for the next game like it’s a red self-destruct switch. “I don’t want him getting caught up in life after high school when he doesn’t have to think about it yet.”

“I’m, like, two hundred and five percent sure the dude’s thought about it already.”

“One of many examples of my bad influence.”

“Nah, you’re just someone people worry about easily,” says Soonyoung. “No one ever knows what’s going in in your head. It’s like Gretchen Wiener’s hair—incredibly large and full of secrets.”

Wonwoo sighs with a fading grin, mind and limbs suddenly realizing the dull emptiness of being unoccupied. He fights against grabbing his phone, like the half-assed millennial he is, the moment message balloons from Mingyu pop up.

“Have you thought about it? Life after high school?” Soonyoung asks. Wonwoo graces him with a gratuitous pause, and Soonyoung’s sigh following it is gritty. “You’re you, of course you have.”

“Spoiler alert,” Wonwoo replies, dry and increasingly sad, “the ending isn’t a happily ever after.”

“Not even a moderately civil to-be-continued?”

“Up for debate.”

“But it’s not like you’re doing a Joshua and studying abroad,” reasons Soonyoung. He sounds so unbearably hopeful for someone fighting for something that isn’t his. “You’ll still be here in Korea when he’s a senior in high school.”

“Yeah, the abroad life isn’t for me,” Wonwoo says hollowly, officially closing the game for the night. “But maybe it’s the life for Mingyu.”

 

  

  

> **Mingmingu:**  
>  what are you up to? i miss you already : <  
>  can i call? or come over? we don’t have to do much  
>  i just feel lonely without you

 

 

 

The rest of the semester sees Wonwoo and Mingyu attached at the hip, and the seniors’ graduation pretty much ties them together by the red string, so to speak.

“Just when I thought I was finally going to be the center of attention,” Jeonghan muses as he watches Mingyu hold Wonwoo in front of Joshua, who is breaking many sweats in trying to convince them that American soil is not inherently interlaced with drugs, crime, and Meryl Streep’s sweat.

“I watch enough TV to know,” comments Jihoon, wincing when Joshua flares at Mingyu’s confusion between Disneyland and Disney World, “that being the main character is anything but perfect.”

Wonwoo and Mingyu make a list of things to do for the upcoming summer just as any well-to-do couple does: buy matching clothes, go to the beach, try to study somewhere in the cracks of being an obnoxious couple. But summer has to go and pour gasoline on those plans, set them aflame, and stand back to admire the firelight.

Mingyu’s parents surprise him with a stack of overly positive-sounding letters for summer programs in America, England, and Australia, one of which has a plane ticket to Pennsylvania written all over it before Mingyu can utter a blip of consent. American business schools are serious names to aspire for, but Wonwoo supposes that Mingyu’s feet have always been destined for big shoes.

The day Mingyu is supposed to leave for the states, he doesn’t even have to whine over the phone to get Wonwoo to see him off. Wonwoo shows up all on his own volition, disheveled in his wrinkled pajamas and record-breaking dark circles, but he’s wearing his best smile so it’s not so bad (even if it is).

“I miss you already,” Mingyu mumbles into Wonwoo’s shoulder, fingers tightening around the back of Wonwoo’s shirt.

“You always say that,” says Wonwoo, laugh airy, trying his best to sound calm as he strokes Mingyu’s hair. “You can call me every night if you want to. God knows I abuse my body clock enough to be awake when you will be.”

“I was so excited to spend the summer with you.”

“We have the end of summer.”

“I’m scared. I’ve never been away from home this long before.”

Wonwoo separates himself enough to cradle Mingyu’s face in his hands. “Look at— hey, look at me. This is going to be good for you. You’re going to have fun, experience some life-changing things, and send me aesthetic photos of every dog you come across. Promise?”

“Promise.”

“You’ll be just fine, alright? You’ll be fine. We’ll be fine.”

“Yeah,” Mingyu says, pulling Wonwoo into another tight hug. “We’ll be fine.”

If Mingyu’s family finds it weird that Wonwoo is seeing Mingyu off at the airport, they don’t say anything. No one turns heads at two almost-adults embracing like they’re being forced apart, or at someone as handsome as Mingyu tearing up at the prospect of not seeing Wonwoo for at least a month. These things probably happen too often for people to think it anything of it.

So Wonwoo’s summer vacation turns into a gross, sweaty version of what winter ended up being, i.e. a stewing mess of down-spiraling thoughts without Mingyu’s dumb, endearing outbursts to keep those thoughts afloat. Luckily the rest of Wonwoo’s friends are nice enough to hang out with him, seeing as he admittedly neglected them for a while.

Mingyu calls and texts a lot, but they peter out as the weeks pass by. It’s what Wonwoo expected, honestly: Mingyu needing an emotional crutch to handle the first few days of his program before finding a comfortable pace with people he unintentionally charmed. That doesn’t stop Wonwoo from missing him. In fact, it makes him miss Mingyu even more.

“You could tell him that, you know,” Seungcheol says during an emergency lunch Wonwoo called him up for. “I’m sure he’ll appreciate you telling him.”

“But I don’t want to distract him from making an impression,” argues Wonwoo, highness in the back of his throat. “Especially since he seems to really like it there. He belongs there.”

“Who’s to say where anyone belongs but themselves?” Seungcheol counters easily. “It doesn’t hurt to be honest with him. Especially about your thoughts for the future.”

“Now you’re starting to sound like Soonyoung. That’s a dangerous line you’re treading,” Wonwoo warns. “Also, honesty does hurt. A lot. I told Mingyu I couldn’t remember the first time we met and I think I broke his heart.”

Seungcheol shrugs, eyes at a distance Wonwoo can’t gauge, but it seems wistful. “Better honesty than omission. Would you rather be heartbroken because Mingyu chose to not tell you something important?”

“To be honest, I’d rather not be heartbroken at all.”

“Who does?” Seungcheol offers him a sympathetic look. “But it’s a risk we’re always taking, no matter who we end up loving.”

 

 

 

 _“…Soonyoung dared him, and he_ actually _pissed in the fountain. Wish you were here…”_

_“…how’s your group project going? You were stressed about it last week…”_

_“..you okay? Take care of yourself…”_

_“…there’s something— never mind. Just call me back when you have free time…”_

_“Hey! Really sorry, last week was total mayhem. I didn’t get through all your voicemails, but, good news: the professor said my group did really well! He even offered to connect me to some internships! Am I dreaming? How did I get so lucky? I don’t think I’ve been this comfortable with my English before either—it’s really amazing, being able to communicate so confidently. Man, I can’t wait to tell you about what’s happened! I miss you loads! I hope you miss me, too.”_

 

 

 

It takes a while for Mingyu to settle back into Seoul and hurdle over jet lag after such a long flight, but when he does, Wonwoo immediately invites him over.

From the front door, Wonwoo practically drags Mingyu in by the collar, insisting that his mom is working a late shift at the hospital and his dad is off on some work retreat with his company. _What about his brother_ , Mingyu will ask. _Who knows_ , Wonwoo will say, because all he cares about right now is being with Mingyu.

A journey as short as that from the front door to Wonwoo’s bedroom has this strange power of magnification. Wonwoo notices it all: the heaviness and speed of Mingyu’s breath; the slight limp of a nearly-healed sprain; the anxious tremble of Mingyu’s fingers, stuck between fleeing from or tightening around Wonwoo’s.

A leader by birth and built through circumstance, yet Mingyu stands there, awkward, with little idea of what to do with himself after the click of the lock. So Wonwoo leads him, and Mingyu lets himself be lead.

Mingyu lets himself be pushed into the bed with playful force, lets himself get teased by ten points of pressure at the skin of his waist. But the gentle pull of his belt coerces him into toppling Wonwoo over like an overeager teenager, starved for the taste of affection after winning over someone who so rarely dispenses it.

“Someone’s excited,” he mumbles against Wonwoo’s wanting mouth.

“Speak for yourself,” that mouth responds, a gentle bite to Mingyu’s bottom lip.

The sound that escapes their throats is animalistic and raw, tethered merely by the string of first-time hesitation. It’s strung tight to the point of flirtation, breakage on the brink of kissing them both. Limbs have become exotic languages attached to bodies of new words. In each other’s arms, they feel like each other but only in essence, feeling, beyond what imagination could ever hope to be capable of.

Mingyu lifts himself above Wonwoo, body telling of how jittery he’s become. “Is this okay?” Mingyu asks.

There are some things, like hearts and people, that can’t be repaired. But they can be held like they were never broken, with gentle fingers and apologetic smiles that tell Wonwoo he’s okay—that tell Wonwoo everything is okay. Sometimes things aren’t, but right now, in that moment, he really wants to make it that way.

He pulls Mingyu down by the neck into a fierce kiss that nearly shocks Mingyu off the bed. Everything is desperate, pleading, almost wretched. Wonwoo reaches for everything that can be reached as all of his nerves react to Mingyu’s clueless but insistent hands. Somewhere in the haze, Mingyu drags his teeth on Wonwoo’s lip, and something indescribably warm scatters from Wonwoo’s head down the curve of his spine. He jerks his hips, and the resulting groans are nothing short of guttural.

They barely separate enough for Wonwoo to whisper, “Please.”

Mingyu, with unshakable willpower only comparable to that of Father Time himself, maintains the minuscule distance between them. His breathing is thick and unsure as he studies Wonwoo with those wide, stunningly clear eyes of his. But that makes it easier for Wonwoo to see that something isn’t right—something Mingyu realizes, too.

“There’s something on your mind,” Mingyu says quietly, pulling away more until he’s sitting on the bed.

Wonwoo pauses, his breathing normalizing as he searches for the right words. “There’s always something on my mind,” he decides on.

“Are you going to tell me?”

Wonwoo tries to get the words out— _Will you still be with me after graduation? Where will we be in future? Will we be in each other’s futures at all?—_ but his throat strangles the words in their place, and the silence extinguishes the light in Mingyu’s face.

“Please,” Mingyu says almost inaudibly. Wonwoo had no idea the word could sound so different so quickly.

“I promise it’s nothing important.”

“It might be important to me. Everything on your mind is important to me.”

Mingyu has never seemed this genuinely hurt before, and Wonwoo’s brain is xenophobic to the foreignness of it. “Just trust me.”

“I don’t—” Mingyu sighs, grabbing what he thinks is his shirt but is actually Wonwoo’s. He doesn’t let go of it. “I don’t want our first time to be like this. I don’t want mine to be like this.”

Wonwoo sits up. He tries to make eye contact with Mingyu, but fails. “Like what?” he asks.

Tears are pearling in the corners of Mingyu’s eyes. He doesn’t react when Wonwoo reaches over to wipe them away, staying perfectly mute and unresponsive to the touch like a man petrified into a statue.

“Like you’re far away from me again,” is all Mingyu says.

 

 

 

Smooth sails were a far cry from what Wonwoo expected since the beginning, but he thought storms were limited to the weather. Clearly, he was mistaken.

His and Mingyu’s dates at the tail end of summer end up awkward and quiet, almost worse when they are together than apart, and it isn’t long before Mingyu suggests they take a break. Something like that should come with the implication of continuation or an apology, at least, but the tone is indiscernible at best. Mingyu gives the suggestion with the hesitant firmness of someone riddled with second thoughts, but perhaps Wonwoo is reading too much into it again. Mingyu doesn’t make decisions without good reason, and this should be no different.

So Wonwoo acknowledges the suggestion, perhaps with more readiness than Mingyu was expecting. College app season has arrived, and that, after all, has always been Wonwoo’s greatest priority.

And so senior year begins quietly, muted in every sense of word, and it’s compounded by the lingering moments of an elongated rainy season. Nobody asks anything, or maybe no one dares to, but Wonwoo wishes someone would say something just to break whatever misery he’s imprisoned in this time.

He didn’t know white noise could turn gray without unceasing complaints about Geography or student council meetings. Clothes become colder without a second body to share them with. But, perhaps worst of all, is that the loudest, brightest parts of Wonwoo’s day have become quiet shadows of what they used to be. He never knew the silence could be so stifling.

Minutes turn to hours turn to days by the time Wonwoo realizes that missing someone has turned into missing the feeling of being with them.

 

 

 

“I know you've internalized that 'a lemon a day keeps the feelings away' thing since, like, sixth grade,” Soonyoung tells him, tired breaths peppering his words, “but I didn't think you could actually  _be_ the lemon.”

“I’m reaching umeboshi levels at this point,” Wonwoo acknowledges with a shiver, recalling the time he stupidly downed a whole plum during his class trip to Japan. He really needs to stop eating things that could possibly kill him.

Mid-August to early October turns Wonwoo into a regular assistant (read: sits in a corner and traces on the floor what could be either Mingyu’s name or elaborate pentagrams) at the school’s dance studio. Most consider the place an artifact at this point with how many generations of sweat are currently under Wonwoo’s butt, so it’s not the most aesthetic place to be at after school.

But with the Korean Cultural Club’s autumn show coming up soon, not even Choi Minho’s post-concert tank top could lure Soonyoung out of practice. (A lock of Lee Taemin’s hair, on the other hand, is a different story.) And Wonwoo, surprisingly, needs companionship.

Even though Soonyoung has his eyes trained on the newbie dancers Minghao is monitoring, his ears are locked and unloaded to welcome whatever existential parable Dr. Doom has prepared this time.

“Not much to update you on today. I’m just sad—more than usual,” Wonwoo adds.

“Yeah I got that much,” Soonyoung says, gesturing vaguely at Wonwoo’s…well, at Wonwoo. “No word from Anime Boy?”

Wonwoo shakes his head, going back to tracing Mingyu’s name and/or pentagrams on the ground. Who knows, maybe they’re the same thing.

Soonyoung puts his hands together in prayer, turns his face stony, and offers sagely, “As the legendary poet and religious figurehead, Hong Joshua, once declared to the bruised ego of Yoon the Great after the girl he wanted to prompose to asked out Seungcheol instead…”

He pauses. Even if the effect is ruined by Junhui’s distant, unapologetic toot trumpet.

Then, with great feeling, “ _Let it go._ ”

Wonwoo side-glares Soonyoung for both his terrible singing and unnecessary insensitivity. But Soonyoung’s gotten used to the bone-chill of Wonwoo’s death stare in the few months since, what Jeonghan dubbed, “The Titanic.” (“Why the fuck?” Jihoon had asked. “Because my ship sank in a blockbuster tragedy,” Jeonghan had answered, whimpering.) So the overall effect is null.

Soonyoung unhelpfully adds, “Jun’s got the right idea.”

Junhui sends them a jolly thumbs-up through the mirror. Wonwoo closes his eyes and wonders what heinous crimes his past selves committed to anger the universe this much.

“The advice is sans the _Frozen_ reference, of course,” Soonyoung has to clarify, apparently. “Joshua doesn’t know how to be ironic. His entire existence is un-ironic.”

“An envious trait to have,” Wonwoo mutters.

“If it’s any help, at least you’re not the cyborg-vampire-astronaut you said you were in fifth grade.”

“But imagine how much I could make being a one-man circus.”

“Shit, you right.”

Wonwoo indulges in a small laugh. Even if Soonyoung sucks at saying the right things, he knows how to make the wrong words sound right enough.

“Should I really just let it go?” asks Wonwoo, almost too quietly to hear beneath the electronic banshee screaming (dubstep) in the background. “Let Mingyu go?”

“If that’ll help you move on with your life and be happy, then Elsa it out, my dude.”

Wonwoo straightens himself up, feeling the Disney-fueled empowerment slowly pooling inside him. “You know what, maybe you’re right,” he says with conviction. “I’m a strong and independent not-woman who’s perfectly capable of forgetting about something as dumb as—”

“Hey Minghao, I got your text. You get your PSP stuck in the weirdest places— um.”

Wonwoo wonders if it’s possible to get high from inadvertently sniffing floor varnish for several weeks because there’s no way he’s not hallucinating Mingyu’s voice. But when Wonwoo’s eyes chase down the source of those words, Mingyu is really there, at the door of the studio, looking ten years more tired but he’s as real and as magnetic as ever.

All the dancers suddenly stop what they’re doing, and the mood of the room turns awkward with a capital “AWK.”

“I-I’m sorry for interrupting,” Mingyu stammers, eyes very obviously flitting from Wonwoo to anywhere-but-Wonwoo. Even now, Wonwoo finds his honesty indubitably cute.

It takes Mingyu a moment to process his environment, as if the gravity of his situation took the scenic route before hitting him. But Minghao’s outstretched hand prompts him of the task at hand, so he quickly scuttles over to mete it out—that is, before walking backwards into the doorframe of the studio. And _fuck_ is it adorable.

Wonwoo stands up and reaches out on instinct, the need to cradle Mingyu’s head still ingrained in his fingers, and Mingyu sees him. Whether the flush on his face is of embarrassment or grief, it’s hard to tell.

For a brief second, maybe even two, their eyes properly and fully meet for the first time in a long while. But the nostalgia, comfort, warmth and _want_ that washes over Wonwoo makes the act feel as natural and necessary as breathing. Mingyu looks so exhausted with his unnaturally pallid tinge and drooping eyes, but when those sharp features soften to almost a smile, Wonwoo wonders if Mingyu ever misses him, too.

But “brief” is the word as the protective edges quickly return and Mingyu gathers himself up like a professional.

“Good luck with practice,” is all he gets out before disappearing like vapor, as if he was never there.

Quiet returns to the room, only the occasional squeaks of shoes and rustle of clothes marring the near-perfect atmosphere. Then the music is back on, and practice resumes like nothing happened.

Behind Wonwoo, Soonyoung stays where he is on the floor. He knows Wonwoo—the Demon King who can’t summon even an ounce of resentment at seeing Mingyu's unresponsive ass finally show, even on a planned accident. Who can’t let the bitterness overshadow the gratitude he must feel after a dry spell of camping out on the official student government Instagram.

“You did that on purpose,” Wonwoo accuses Minghao without venom.

Minghao, whose unchanged expression remains untranslatable (then again, Wonwoo doesn’t know any Chinese to begin with), simply sends him a pointed look. “What was that about moving on, Elsa?”

In the background, Junhui whistles the tune of that godforsaken song.

"I'm sorry," Soonyoung offers when Wonwoo returns to the floor beside him. "I didn't think that'd happen."

Wonwoo shakes his head and sighs. "You have a questionable taste in dance underlings."

Soonyoung bumps shoulders with him and nods. "We all have questionable taste in people."

 

 

 

Wonwoo hears the rumors floating in the hallways, their presence bitter and faint like cigarette smoke.

“I hear Mingyu’s thinking of going abroad—”

“Yeah yeah, I saw photos of him at that famous business school—”

“Why am I so happy and heartbroken at the same time—”

“Because you bit off more than you bargained for—wait, that’s not right,” says Wonwoo’s mother after dinner one night. His father is working late, as usual, and his brother retired to his room already. Wonwoo wishes he could be surprised at how perceptive she is, but she wouldn’t be his mother otherwise. “Wanna blow off steam? Raise the dead and conjure up some mayhem?”

“Knowing where music has gone these days, I think Uncle would prefer staying where he is,” says Wonwoo, faint tilt to his lips. “You’re not going to chokehold me into talking, are you? My body started physically rejecting turtlenecks since last time.”

His mother stops halfway to cracking her knuckles. “I’m just worried about you, dear.”

“Are my chakras out of wack?”

“They’re never ‘in wack’ to begin with, but yes, you’re not yourself. You haven’t been for a while and I want to know what’s going on.”

After a moment of Wonwoo’s silence, she sighs and reaches across the table to hold his hands with the same reassuring strength she had while cradling him at birth.

“I love you no matter what, okay? I’ve said that time and time again.”

Wonwoo tenses, almost tearing his fingers away from hers in the split-thought of vanishing and never coming back. But he supposes it’s about time he shows his mom that, no, he’s not Death incarnate; he has a heart. And it sucks.

“Mingyu broke up with me,” he says, voice cracking on the last word.

There is no “You were dating?” nor any “You were dating a _boy?”_ at any point. No yelling, no disappointment in a potential lack of biological grandchildren to inherit the family’s extensive collection of fridge magnets. Nothing of the sort. His mother only says, “You rushed in with expectations again, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t,” he protests weakly, but the pierce of his mother’s stare quickly deflates him. “Fine. I did.”

“People aren’t expectations. They’re called ‘people’ for a reason.”

“But we were honest with each other. Or at least we tried to be.”

“Were you?”

“Not entirely.”

“Because it’s hard to be,” she says, nodding. “Nothing is ever going to be perfect. You’re never going to be completely honest, especially not this early.”

“But it was going so well at the start,” Wonwoo says, fingers curling in his mother’s hold. “And then, for some reason, we just crashed and burned. He’s different. I think I am, too.”

His mother smiles something contemplative at him, something so stuck in the past that he wonders how long it’s been there. “I think what you have to realize is that, no matter how much truth or trust you give someone, the person you think you know will never be the person in front of you.”

“If the way I see people isn’t reliable, then how could I ever possibly understand them?”

“I don’t think we can ever completely understand anyone in the same way no one will ever completely understand us,” she says, the shadows of her fine lines weathered with brutal honesty and graceful acceptance. “People are just too complicated for that. But, when it comes to understanding people, getting a ninety is basically the same as a hundred, right?”

Wonwoo gasps in mock offense. His mother rolls her eyes.

“Why ever bother with people in the first place,” he argues, “if no one will ever completely understand?” It dawns on Wonwoo just how petulant he’s pushing his words but he can’t stop now when being childish is a prerequisite to first loves.

Because that’s what it is, isn’t it?

And like a true paragon of motherly affection, she “pft”s at him, seeing his dumb ass finally understand. “What you’re asking is a question purely of personal worth. I can’t answer it for you. And if I could, I wouldn’t tell you. You wouldn’t learn anything if I did.”

“I’m so tired of learning,” bemoans Wonwoo, but he does feel marginally better than before. “Life is exhausting.”

“It is,” agrees his mother, patting him on the head. “Do you remember what your uncle told you before? The rainy days…”

Wonwoo manages a small smile. “Make the sunny days even sunnier.”

“When you find reasons to bear through the exhaustion, the pain, the hurt,” says Wonwoo’s mother, “they make the process of living a little more bearable. You’ll get through it, dear. The rain will pass.”

 

 

 

Mingyu. Drunk. At a party.

It sounds like an oddly convenient plot device to push along whatever slump the narrative has reached, and maybe Seungcheol plans the house party to make it seem that way. But Mingyu really does lose his alcohol virginity that night on three too many shots and a dry-cleaning bill for Seungkwan’s second favorite sweater, all of which Wonwoo has the (mis)fortune of witnessing with his two mortal eyes. Seungcheol probably plans it that way, too.

“Wonwooooo,” Mingyu slurs, mind and soul clearly departed from his body as he drapes himself over a thoroughly-disconcerted Wonwoo. “Are you there? Can you hear me? Can I tell you somethin’?”

“You can tell me anything, baby,” spouts Jeonghan in a 0/10 impersonation of Wonwoo when he should be spending his gap year traveling the world or doing charity or being a _better fucking person_.

Wonwoo dryly hisses at Jeonghan “I’ll crush your balls” before steadying Mingyu onto the nearby couch. (He also tries to ignore the familiarity of the body heat, the weight of muscle and joints, the sound of Mingyu’s breathing—) Wonwoo’s brain is screaming ESCAPE and NOPENOPENOPE and STEAL THE ROSÉ in bright neon letters, but then something wraps around his wrist and prevents him from gratuitously robbing the drinks table. Just by feel, Wonwoo can already tell that it's Mingyu's hand.

The grip is loose enough for Wonwoo to leave, but firm enough to ask him to stay. So he stays.

“Do you know why I let you keep my jacket?” Mingyu gets out so coherently, he almost convinces Wonwoo that he’s sober.

Wonwoo gulps and sits beside Mingyu, whose upward gaze, glazed over with bad decisions and liquid truth, doesn’t change.

“‘Cause it was an excuse to see you more often,” Mingyu confesses with a hiccup. “Remember all those times you tried to find me? ‘Mingyu! Mingyu!’ you’d call out—ah, I can’t get over your voice, you know, how nice it makes my name sound. Then I’d— I’d see you in the hallways sometimes, wearing that part of me, and my heart would just about burst! Can you imagine? Isn’t it pathetic? How much I’ve come to like you? Do you trust me enough to at least believe that?”

Wonwoo blinks deliberately. “I trust you.”

“Your skin, your smile, your laugh— ugh don’t even get me started on your _eyes_ ,” Mingyu continues. The more he speaks, the more vehement he becomes, even if he sounds like his tongue is getting swallowed in his words. “You’re so clever and witty, even if you call it being sarcastic, and there’s so much kindness that you cover up because you think you’re too edgy for sincerity and that’s honestly one of the most adorable things about you."

"Mingyu—”

“I don’t feel like myself without you, and I’ve never felt so complete and incomplete like this, like we’re puzzle pieces that fit but are too easily pulled apart, and I hate it. I hate that you don’t tell me things when you’re sad or worried, that you don’t let me bear your burdens with you. I hate seeing you hurt and I hate not being able to do a damn thing about it.”

Mingyu is on the verge of tears— _oh god_ he’s an emotional drunk—when he says, “I don’t know what’s going to happen after graduation, or what will happen to us in the future, but for now, I wish you— wish you knew, how much I— I—”

And Mingyu, after passionately running through his last vestiges of energy, passes out. There’s a ridiculous laugh somewhere in Wonwoo that’s fighting a losing a battle against his ballooning anxiety.

“Well,” starts Junhui, materializing rather eerily from the shadowy depths of the badly-lit room, “that was a rollercoaster if I’ve ever seen one. Then again, you’re a bit of a rollercoaster yourself.”

Wonwoo doesn’t look at him. “Nausea-inducing?”

“More like enjoyable outside the initial terror. What’re you gonna do now?”

“Well, someone needs to watch over Mingyu,” suggests Seungcheol as he and Seokmin lay their snoring friend on the guest room bed.

The comment alerts at least a dozen pairs of eyes to Wonwoo, who only gets out a startled “the fuck—” before Jihoon shoves him into the bedroom, the same one in which Wonwoo’s unconscious, freshly-exed ex is out cold because of a nonexistent alcohol tolerance.

“What happened to not fucking things up?” Jihoon says, eyes narrowed.

“And I said ‘too late’!” Wonwoo calls out when Jihoon leaves.

Wonwoo carefully sits on the edge of the bed and reaches out towards Mingyu’s hair, splayed haphazardly across his forehead, a little sticky with sweat and overconfidence. At the last second, he pulls back.

“You’re an idiot,” Wonwoo murmurs as he watches the regularity of Mingyu’s rising and falling chest. “That makes two of us, I guess. No wonder we made a good pair."

He pauses to swallow.

"Maybe we still do.”

With heart thrumming wild at the slow recollection of Mingyu’s words, Wonwoo gives in to temptation and brushes Mingyu’s fringe out of his face. “I wonder what you were going to say,” he muses quietly. “Was cutting yourself off strategic? Leaving me off at a cliffhanger like that?"

He smiles something thin, but there, as he presses his palm to Mingyu's cheek. The warmth is unbearably familiar.

"Apologizing too much, not being honest with yourself, and now using alcohol to talk. You’re such a dingus, learning all my worst habits. How could you ever feel the way you do about me?”

Wonwoo checks his watch: it’s almost 2AM and there’s no way Mingyu is going home at this hour, smelling like a bar drunk on itself, without getting guillotined by his parents in the morning.

So instead of bringing Mingyu home, Wonwoo pulls the blankets higher on Mingyu’s body, presses a kiss to his forehead, and whispers, “I’m sorry.”

 

 

 

“Me too,” is the first thing Mingyu tells him the next morning. It’s technically afternoon, but any time at least ten hours after passing out is morning enough.

“You,” says Wonwoo, putting down his cereal bowl, “need an advil.”

Mingyu nods, wincing. “And orange juice, please.”

“Seungcheol is a heathen and drinks only non-pulp, if you’re okay with that.”

“Mm.”

The quiet between them isn’t tense, or stuffy, or thick with the adrenaline to broach something that’s probably as absent from reality as Mingyu is right now. His breath is absolutely rancid and he looks like a dementor’s emptied martini glass, but he only looks half dead and Wonwoo is trying to focus on the brighter side of things.

“Good morning,” says Mingyu, voice scratchy with repentance for last night’s chaos. “Probably should’ve said that first.”

“Maybe you did,” Wonwoo offers. “Hansol is a firm believer in time being a social construct. Then again, he thinks scientology is a legitimate religion, so.”

“Even if time is a construct, it’s passing isn’t.”

“Wow. That’s deep. Like Buddha-deep. Like angsty tumblr hipster who exclusively posts about sad poetry and Green Day lyrics-deep. I got goosebumps. Wanna see?”

Wonwoo’s exaggerated sleeve pull manages a small chuckle from Mingyu, which makes Wonwoo think, _Okay, maybe this isn’t hopeless after all._

“You know,” Wonwoo says as he hands over the medicine and sugar water disguised as liquid fruit, “it’s rude to pretend to sleep when someone is naively pouring out his heart in the presence of your apparently not-sleeping self.”

“Is that what it’s called nowadays? Pouring out one’s heart?” asks Mingyu, gratefully swallowing the pain reliever. “I think that’s what _I_ did, if the serious cringe aftermath I’m feeling right now is anything to go by. _You_ , on the other hand, were practicing dialogue from those early 2000’s dramas with rehashed but admittedly still enjoyable plots.”

“Hey, don’t insult my preferences in entertainment when all you watch is compilations of oddly satisfying videos.”

“Because they’re so oddly satisfying!” Mingyu whines, but the smile Wonwoo sees, the same one he’s missed for god knows how long, doesn’t falter. “I’m sorry. For everything.”

“For what?” Wonwoo faux-scoffs. “Taking a break when you were feeling overwhelmed? Finally realizing the next step you want to take for your future? Getting rightly angry at me for being so secretive about my worries over how we’ll end up? You have nothing to be sorry for. I was the uncooperative one.”

“Pushing someone to talk about something uncomfortable to them is wrong,” argues Mingyu.

“And not being honest for my own selfishness isn’t right, either,” argues back Wonwoo.

“Well, someone wise once told me, though rather grouchily,” Mingyu looks up at Wonwoo through his disorganized fringe, “‘Agree to disagree, whatever, but can we at least acknowledge that no side was without misunderstanding?’”

Wonwoo whacks him in the arm. “That's gross. You're gross.”

“I am. Especially now. Look at me— wait, no, please don’t look at me. I’m a mess.”

“I couldn’t look away even if I tried.”

“Who’s the gross one now?”

“Still you.”

Wonwoo gently squeezes Mingyu’s nose because there’s no way he’s kissing that toxic wasteland of a mouth, but it’s enough of a kind of-kiss to make Mingyu look at Wonwoo again like he’s the stars.

So maybe Wonwoo isn’t exactly a constellation, and maybe Mingyu’s far from being the sun, but space has always been a terrifyingly unpredictable place. And maybe Wonwoo can start trying to get used to that.

(“Don’t you dare.”

“Why not?”

“I do not consent to kissing battery acid.”

“You wound me and my perfectly fresh morning breath. C’mere, let me _love you_ —”

“Fuck _off_ —”)

 

 

 

As Wonwoo and Mingyu slowly recollect the pieces of their broken bridge, the tree leaves turn red and wither like seasonal mood rings while the weather becomes chilly again.

It’s hard grasping the reality of their future prospects, what with Wonwoo shooting for the SKY universities and Mingyu already planning around the states. Wonwoo almost wishes that Mingyu eventually ends up attending his Korean safeties, but immediately scolds himself for thinking something so self-centered. They’re going to make use of what they have left, and what they will have tomorrow, even if it won’t be much.

At least they finally get to spend the holidays with each other, and there’s something Wonwoo has been dying to share.

“My turn to be the gross one,” he announces proudly. “Hold out your hand.”

Mingyu coughs on his bubble tea. “If you’re going to propose, can you not do it at a Seven Eleven? When I called it my holy ground, this isn't what I meant.”

“Hey, if people can get married at Taco Bell, a proposal can happen at a convenience store.” Wonwoo trails off thoughtfully, only to get thwacked by the hand Mingyu hesitantly offers. Wonwoo laughs as he pulls a small, velvet box from his coat pocket. “ _Shwing!_ Would you look at that. I bet you have no idea what’s in here.”

“Your tolerance of gluten-free fanatics who aren’t celiacs?”

“You know me so well. But I was thinking something more tangible. And shiny. I know you like shiny things.”

Mingyu colors profusely as Wonwoo carefully opens the box. Yes, convenience stores aren’t the most romantic places to be giving someone a promise ring, whatever, but Mingyu is smiling like it's the first time Wonwoo confessed to him and _oh_ Wonwoo can't help but find him so wonderfully, familiarly handsome in the glow of the drinks refrigerators.

After Wonwoo slips the gold band onto Mingyu’s finger, Mingyu laughs and twirls his hand in the air, holding the gleam up to the ceiling lights. It’s amazing how warm one’s face gets at the sight of something so simple as an accessory. But Wonwoo thinks the fire alarms might sound at how overheated his head has become seeing Mingyu wear what Wonwoo hopes will help keep the pieces from falling apart again.

When Wonwoo snaps out of it, Mingyu is grinning at him.

“What are the odds,” he starts _,_ “that we’d be getting each other,” reaches into his coat pocket, “the exact same thing for Christmas?”

“Not as low as I might’ve thought, apparently,” Wonwoo answers quietly as he watches Mingyu show him a blue box of the same kind. His chest fills closer to its brim as Mingyu shakily takes Wonwoo’s hand in his. “When did you get it?”

“At the beginning of summer, after the graduation ceremony. You?”

“Midway through summer. A few days before you came home.”

They both turn so scarlet, it would be hard to believe it’s winter, not summer, and that they’re both almost-adults, not middle schoolers whose only experience of love comes from fiction. The rings don’t match perfectly in width and thickness, nor is Wonwoo’s a perfect fit in the first place. But he realizes just how long Mingyu’s thought of this and Wonwoo is starting to believe that the limit for happiness doesn’t exist.

“Merry Christmas,” Mingyu says affectionately, pulling Wonwoo close. “I love you.”

Wonwoo drops his head onto Mingyu’s chest, ring finger burning with the feel of metal. “I can’t believe we’re doing this. In a convenience store. On the week of Christmas.”

Mingyu rests his head on Wonwoo’s. “Shut up, it’s romantic.”

Wonwoo grumbles, pressing closer. “Love you too.”

 

 

 

Winter is a stubborn motherfucker, that much is known. But Wonwoo, for once, appreciates it, because it’s when the flowers start blooming that Wonwoo realizes he’s on the last page of his life’s high school chapter. It’s both a semi-religious revelation and the scariest thing he’s ever come to fathom.

March is met with a mixed bag of emotions. Wonwoo gets rejected by his top two choices, but his third greets him positively with digital confetti and a generic letter of acceptance. It takes a while to get off his self-imposed mountain of salt, but he eventually reaches the bottom with a sweet-tooth for the fact that he somehow managed to slip into an elite institution.

And who doesn’t celebrate college acceptances without—you guessed it—a shit ton of alcohol? (Many people, actually. Wonwoo just lives in a culture that perpetuates the suitability of drinking for every celebratory occasion and _no_ he’s _not_ an alcoholic he _swears_.)

Chan gets a recording of Wonwoo drunkenly making out with Mingyu, disgustingly inebriated on soju bombs and french fries, and it quickly becomes the group’s prize blackmail to make Wonwoo everyone’s slave until the end of the year. The threat doesn’t work on Mingyu, unfortunately, because he’s actually kind of touched by the memory. It’s weirdly sacrilegious, but, you know, it's Mingyu.

When graduation finally arrives, it arrives innocuously and at a speed Wonwoo is pretty sure wasn’t there last year.

He dances in and out of formal attire, gowns, used graduation caps and uncomfortably tight formal shoes. He hasn’t touched a suit since his uncle’s funeral a few years ago, but it’s fitting, he thinks, now that he’s nearing the passing away of someone he used to be.

“How do you feel?” asks Jihoon while holding up a crisp, dark red shirt that matches either his appreciation for red wine or general thirst for blood.

“Uneasy,” says Wonwoo at his side, holding onto his plain white choice. “Like, high school is—was? Fuck, who knows anymore—a nightmare. But I still can’t imagine not waking up at 7am every morning to yell at Jeonghan for snapping me post-morning run nudes, or at Junhui for slandering four years of friendship by sending me emails instead of just adding me on Kakaotalk. Four years, Jihoon. _Four. Years._ But if you’re talking about last night’s Mexican food, I had some Pepto so my digestive system and I are as good as new.”

“Splendid.” Jihoon clears his throat. “On a different note, uh, I guess: are you and Mingyu going to be alright?”

“Maybe. Maybe not,” Wonwoo answers, admittedly rather vaguely. He re-inspects the ring on his finger for the hundredth time since receiving it. “I suppose the one thing we both want right now is to finish the year on a good note. That’s what he deserves.”

“And you,” Jihoon adds with one of his once-in-a-century smiles. Now _that_ is a religious experience. “You deserve to end the year on a good note, too, Wonwoo.”

“Aw, you really are a closet softie.”

“Push it, and I’ll push you off a cliff.”

Wonwoo smiles wistfully and thinks,  _Ah, it's over._

 

 

 

A good note is what Wonwoo gets, surprisingly, and he’s not talking about Seungkwan’s congratulatory musical accompaniment upon exiting the auditorium.

“You made it,” Mingyu says in lieu of a greeting. He sounds breathless and looks handsome as heck in his midnight color scheme and unfairly long legs. “You’re officially done with high school. You’re an adult now.”

“Say that again when he starts doing taxes,” yells Seungcheol from where he’s comforting Soonyoung, who somehow hasn’t turned to tissue paper from the body weight of water he’s shed equally in sobbing and sweating. Wonwoo would take over, but just the word “taxes” has Soonyoung bawling out the second sinking of Atlantis.

There are people who come and go, jostling Wonwoo by the shoulder and congratulating him on defeating the beast that is senior year. His own family finds him for a brief sentimental moment before his mother gets triggered by the other PTA parents into a brag battle none of the children consent to. All the while, Mingyu doesn’t leave his side.

“I wish you did the class speech,” Mingyu says offhandedly as he gives Wonwoo a bouquet very much like himself: obnoxiously giant and very lovably earnest. “I mean, who even starts a graduation speech with Kanye West?”

“A week before dating me, you would’ve loved it.”

“That is not untrue.”

Wonwoo nudges him, grinning. “Maybe I wasn’t such a bad influence after all.”

Mingyu nudges him back, mirroring his grin. “You never were.”

In a momentous stroke of confidence (it’s still a weird fit, like a coat for a completely different person that’s still him somehow), Wonwoo grabs Mingyu’s forearm and pulls him away from the crowd and into the now-empty lobby of the auditorium. When he’s sure they’re alone, Wonwoo drops his head and laughs at the absurdity of it all.

“What?” Mingyu asks, his eloquent question scattered with quiet, pleasantly-surprised chuckles.

“Thank you,” Wonwoo says, lifting his head back up to look at Mingyu. It’s a simple statement of gratitude, but the soft honesty of Wonwoo’s voice has both their hearts battling against their ribs. “I also don’t know where we’ll be, or how the future will treat us. But, now and in this moment, I’m really thankful to you for everything that you’ve done.”

“And I, you,” Mingyu barely manages, gaze heavy and sweet. “What are you going to do now that you’re a free man?”

“I don’t know.” Wonwoo shrugs with the artificial nonchalance of someone who lives and breathes color-coded itineraries. “Go to college, find out that everything I was taught in high school was a lie. Cry about it, probably."

Mingyu laughs and grabs Wonwoo's elbows, pulling him closer until their chests almost touch. The smile on Mingyu's face seems so unreachable and far at first, but it doesn't take long for Wonwoo to realize just how close it is.

"Maybe I'll learn something about myself," Wonwoo continues without hesitation, "Discover what, and who, I really love.”

“Seems like you’ve got a bright future ahead of you,” says Mingyu, taking Wonwoo’s graduation cap and putting it on himself.

“Yeah,” Wonwoo breathes, admiring the fact that Mingyu is absolutely glowing tonight. “The future seems pretty bright to me.”

 


	3. Epilogue

 

When Mingyu finishes dressing up, it’s almost midnight and he finds a condom packet at the door of his dorm suite.

“What the fuck,” he deadpans, staring at the offensive plastic wrapper ruining the asylum-like sheen of the floor.

“You swore,” says Jungkook, astounded, from the living room. “We weren’t even scheduled for our next friendship milestone until Tuesday.”

As usual, Mingyu's roommate is very leisurely sprawled over their century-old couch (and the questionable stains he insists are a “decorative pattern”) as if no consequences existed in life and there wasn’t a comp sci homework set due in six hours. Truly, a champion among men.

Mingyu coughs. “There’s a condom at our door. Again.”

Jungkook coughs back. “Take it as a good omen.”

“A four-leaf clover is a good omen. Class getting cancelled is a good omen. Jesus, hearing Adele on outdated radio stations is a good omen. A _condom_ in a _freshman hallway_ is _not_ a good omen—”

“You’re not a nun, you don’t need Jesus.”

“You sure do.”

“Amen to that, brother.”

Mingyu sighs so hard, he thinks his soul may have dissociated from his body.

“Trust me. With how lonely you’ve been lately, you could use a good omen,” Jungkook drawls, suspicious bottle in his hand close to empty. Knowing how many upperclassmen would take a bullet for Jungkook, let alone lend him questionable liquids, Mingyu stopped asking questions a month into the school year. “On that note, you sure you don’t wanna go to the DSP thing tonight? Mingle with the other business frosh who’ll give up operational management for a life of finance by the end of the year?”

“The second to last time you went to a frat party, you came out of it with seven booty calls and a campus-viral video of you scarring that sophomore girl by doing…whatever it is that you did.”

“…so is that a no?”

“It’s a fuck no.”

Jungkook snickers, hand over his face in, what, embarrassment? Victory? Sadistic entertainment from giving out Mingyu’s number instead of his own at the Tri-Delta bash last week, leaving Mingyu to suffer through four days’ worth of calls from people asking him if he’s the “sexy Korean computer science student with the Timberlands and body rolls”? (“No, I’m sorry, I’m not—” “Not dating? Want to go out?” “Um, I’m sorry again, but—”)

When Mingyu wanted a sociable roommate, this was not what he had in mind.

“Anyway, I’m not the type to go to frat parties,” Mingyu says firmly.

“Yeah, you’re the type to flake on 5th floor game night because a last-minute JP Morgan sesh was giving out free pens and illuminati applications, probably.” Mingyu throws a nearby spoon at Jungkook, who expertly dodges the attack like it’s a normal occurrence. Which it is. “C’mon, dude, you need a break. Even Yugyeom is going, and he still cries when he goes home every other weekend.”

Mingyu feels his skull split slightly at the recurring scene before him: Jungkook trying to convince him that getting trashed on a Thursday night is a good idea, thereby bringing up withering memories of Mingyu’s first, and hopefully last, drunk tirade back in high school.

Massaging his temples, Mingyu insists, “I’m fine, okay?”

“While the Blind community is a severely underrepresented minority in modern society and media at large, I’m offended at how little you think of my vision. I can see that you’re stressed, and I’m worried,” says Jungkook, sounding surprisingly intellectual for someone who sustains himself purely on cup noodles and Old Spice deodorant. “It’s too early in your four years of abominably-priced, brand-name education to be so high strung. Is it because of your long-distance thing? It is, isn’t it?”

“I, uh—”

“Because two years seems like a mighty stretch to be stringing you on.”

Mingyu pauses. _Huh. It’s been two years already?_

Jungkook scowls. “I don’t like that face you’re making.”

“You don’t like my face in general.”

“It’s gorgeous, of course I hate it. Now tell me, is it the long-distance thing that’s been bumming you out?”

“Sometimes it feels that way,” Mingyu admits. Then he smiles, thumbing the ring he’s kept around his finger for apparently two long years. “But we’re fine, I promise. My grades just haven’t been so hot lately, and I need them spotless for summer internship apps next month.”

“Ugh, you sound like a pre-med student, thinking so far ahead like that.”

“I’ll go next time, okay? I just have somewhere to be right now.”

“ _‘Next time,’_ he says,” Jungkook grumbles. “I’ll hold you to it.” He returns to starfishing the only other furniture in the suite that’s passably clean and not Mingyu’s bed (from which Jungkook is indeterminately banned). “Oh yeah! What did you say you were doing? Picking up someone at the airport or something— _ooh_ is it him? The person monopolizing my rightful place as Jeon #1 in in your heart and snap streaks?”

Mingyu bites his lip to keep from grinning too hard, but Jungkook’s already making gagging noises so the attempt is unsuccessful.

“You’re so whipped it hurts,” bemoans Jungkook, arms in a full dramatic flail. “It hurts so much, even the heavens are crying for you.”

Mingyu waves Jungkook good-bye with the umbrella in his hand. “It’s okay, they’re crying for joy.”

 

 

 

“It’s been only three months since you were in Korea,” points out Wonwoo, wiping away the tears on Mingyu’s face. “I even video-Skyped you over the weekend.”

“Do I need to fill out paperwork to be happy to see you?” Mingyu spits at him, far too childish in his grumpiness and sleep deprivation for someone his age. “I just missed you. A lot.”

Mingyu expects an snap from Wonwoo about how he despises being in airplanes because extreme elevations and enclosed spaces give him mild anxiety. Or that he didn’t get a minimum wage job writing articles about stupid celebrity diets and the latest aegyo fad to hit the digital market to not 1) get some footing in the journalism world and 2) buy a plane ticket to America at some point.

Instead, Mingyu gets a kiss on the cheek and a tired, affectionate smile. “I missed you too,” Wonwoo says. “Let’s go home.”

“Who are you and what have you done with my Wonwoo?”

Wonwoo (who may or may not be the _real_ Wonwoo) gives a blank stare.

“I’m wearing a shirt that literally has the word ‘nihilism’ on it,” he notes dryly. “Of course I’m your Wonwoo.”

“The real Wonwoo would’ve said something snarky by now, or scolded me for my mismatched socks—”

“Your _what_ you inattentive _buttmunch_ —”

Mingyu doesn’t remember when exactly he fell in love with Wonwoo, but he recalls, with exceptional clarity, the day his nose was broken.

He also remembers the day he intentionally lost that one-on-one race to The Ice Cream Shop. (Did you think he would lose unless it was on purpose?) And the day an honest monologue saved him from quitting his childhood sport. And the day his heart was broken in the hands of someone with an uncanny ability of sewing the pieces back together. His heart is different now, but it’s still whole.

He remembers the crying and the laughing, the anger and the relief. He remembers all the good in between the bad, and the one person he’d do it all again for.

“Watch yourself, buddy,” Wonwoo warns rather scathingly. “If you weren’t so cute, you’d be barefoot by now. Anyway, my hands are cold, can I use your pockets for a second— oh. Seems like you really did miss me.”

Before Mingyu can react, Wonwoo is waving the plastic-wrapped icon of protection in his face with the manic delight of someone who definitely didn’t sleep on his fourteen-hour flight. There’s a desperation in Mingyu—an intermediate between hiding in a cave and realizing his deplorably long celibacy—that makes him grab Wonwoo’s luggage and hike it to the exit without looking back.

Okay, so maybe there are some things Mingyu wouldn’t dare relive. Seeing Wonwoo basically announce their bedroom plans to an entire lobby of people is one of them. Waiting too long to (re)consummate their relationship is another.

But if Mingyu has learned anything useful in his wild, painfully adolescent life thus far, it would be this.

One: some of the best impressions are like a punch to the face—very literally, in special cases.

Two: sometimes, the whole battle is just about meeting someone halfway—not literally, in this case, because a certain someone is a delicate bean who despises salt water and the possibility of suffocating in vast spaces of the unknown (amongst many other things he reminds Mingyu of on a regular basis).

“What’s the hold up, Speedy?” calls Wonwoo, who is suddenly ahead of him, with that perpetual glint to his eye. “What happened to being the faster one?”

The drumming in Mingyu’s chest has started again. Even until now, his heart still feels stuck in high school. “From what I remember, between the two of us, you’ve always been the faster one.”

Wonwoo kicks him in the shin with a smile as beautiful and as unyielding as he is. “Give me a few hours,” he winks, Mingyu crumbles, “Then we’ll see who the faster one really is.”

The challenge has been placed, and it’s surging through Mingyu’s veins, potent with a distinct excitement he hasn’t stopped feeling since that one fateful day—whichever one it might be.

With his unwaveringly competitive spirit, Mingyu steps into Wonwoo’s personal space and says with a grin, “Wanna bet?”

Wonwoo breathes out, “Wanna _race?”_

And then he’s off, sprinting to the parking lot with Mingyu following closely behind, their laughs ringing like lost, lovesick teens in the damp chill of the night air.

(Three: take advantage of every good omen you find, especially if they keep finding you, too.)

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bc ya’ll know that wonwoo didn’t do all that “where’s wally (mingyu)?” goose-chasing in high school to not get some ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
> 
> and it’s finished! ah, so bittersweet. thank you again for everyone who’s stuck around to read this monster. i know the epilogue might not be for everyone; again, the main story can definitely be taken just by itself. but who doesn't love a little college!au?
> 
> let me know your thoughts! it's the first time i've ever written something so long, so any kind of feedback is welcome.
> 
> once again, thank you so much for reading! i really do appreciate it. xxx  
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> [tumblr](https://aijee.tumblr.com)


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